|| - Personality - ||

Langer is adventurous and brave, always eager to be on the move and discover new and exciting things. Though his adventures often keep him on the wrong side of the law, he's really just a kind-hearted and friendly person who wants to explore things he's not allowed to. He's less a hardened criminal and more a kid who will stop at nothing to get to that cookie jar.

Though he's spent his life on the road, constantly facing danger, he's still easily frightened and intimidated. He'll always continue to press on, but it doesn't take much to make him shriek.

Since becoming a Chilly, he's become a little more cowardly thanks to Arella. He's still always ready to go on an adventure and is very loyal to his friends, but he hesitates a bit more. Still, he's eager to impress and have fun, and since death doesn't mean much to Chillies it's not as big of a deal if he messes something up!

Likes money and will do pretty much anything for it, so long as it's not something totally immortal or something that could bring harm or even just convenience his friends. Money gets you in high places when you're under Arella's command, and even though he doesn't directly work for her anymore he can't break his habit of hoarding cash.

|| - Backstory - ||

Langer lost his parents at an early age to something he doesn't really remember anymore, leaving him to fend for himself before he knew what multiplication was. He bounced between orphanages and repeatedly ran from them, preferring to find his own food and shelter. Though he couldn't really speak highly of being hungry so often, he liked the adventure and excitement that his lifestyle brought him. Viewing it all as one big adventure helped him cope with his situation and the increasingly illegal things it prompted him to do.

One day he ran into a fellow orphan named Ouray Nerau, who had a demon named Khazael sealed in their flesh like some kind of living tattoo. Langer thought that was pretty rad, and befriending the two proved to be a huge boon to him. Khazael made stealing things - whether it was food and clothing or just valuables to sell for money - much easier and safer thanks to their demonic abilities, and with a mutual love for adventure binding them, Langer and Ouray quickly became inseparable. They traveled the world together, hunting for treasure, discovering new places, and sometimes even dishing out some vigilante justice for the sake of those who Heaven seemed to ignore.

As the two reached adulthood and their crimes were becoming increasingly known, Khazael proposed they consider taking their business into Hell. There were all sorts of hidden entrances on the mortal plane that led there, and with Khazael around to aid them they probably wouldn't have any problem stealing rare artifacts from lower demons at the outer fringes of Hell. Not only would they be able to continue their lifestyle, no one on the mortal plane would have a problem with them harassing the demons they looked down upon so intensely! Langer and Ouray agreed and decided to go through with the plan, discovering the aforementioned secret entrances and diving in eagerly.

Upon beginning their excursions into Hell, Langer and Ouray found themselves becoming more interested in adventuring than thievery. Humans were forbidden to enter Hell, and those who did regardless either came back scarred and without a soul or didn't come back at all. As such, information about Hell itself was limited. There weren't maps, historical documents, anything at all, even though from what the two could tell Hell had a vibrant community and a rich history. They took it upon themselves to start mapping things out and writing down journal entries about the various places they found, hoping to someday have enough information to publish, drawing in more adventurers to join them in the fun.

As they began traversing deeper and deeper into Hell, they ran into Demon Lord Zhirael - one of Hell's most feared residents, infamous for his obsession with eyes and his willingness to accept them over souls for contracts. Despite the obvious danger inherent in breaking into the home of a powerful Demon Lord, his property was so full of riches and all sorts of documentation about Hell's culture and past that Langer and Ouray couldn't keep themselves away. Shockingly, this turned out to be a terrible idea! In fact, Langer almost died at Zhirael's hands, and most definitely would have if Zhirael hadn't found himself distracted by Langer's eyes, which evidently were fascinating enough to distract him. Thanks to this distraction, the trio managed to escape with their lives and decided to maybe avoid Zhirael for the time being.

Back on the mortal plane they ran into a woman named LaPlata Costina, who - despite her elegant appearance - rather ungracefully demanded to become part of the group. She seemed out-of-place and completely out of touch with reality, but neither Langer nor Ouray really minded the idea of making a new friend. They accepted her into the group and continued their adventures, at which LaPlata proved herself invaluable during. Though Langer and Ouray found themselves having to explain to her many obvious things about the world, they accepted her excuse of being a wealthy foreigner who just hadn't gotten out much. Even then, they still couldn't help but wonder if that was the whole truth... after all, even things like eating seemed to baffle her. Still, she seemed nice enough, and Langer assured his companions that even if she was lying about something, she probably wasn't doing so out of malice. They continued their journey into Hell as usual, and despite her initial hesitance LaPlata followed them along and became increasingly enthusiastic about her new lifestyle.

Eventually the group decided to go back to Zhirael's place, despite how their first run-in with him ended. There was just too much stuff there to not try again! The addition of LaPlata made things run more smoothly, and so they wound up breaking in time and time again, sometimes managing to take things and oftentimes bringing things like books back when they were done of them. As time went on the group started treating Zhirael more like a Saturday morning cartoon villain than an actual threat, and though he wouldn't admit it the group was beginning to grow on Zhirael. In particular he couldn't give up on his fixation on Langer's eyes - increasingly becoming fixated on Langer himself - and started making a habit of abducting Langer every now and then so he could try to persuade him into giving up at least one of his eyes. While this made LaPlata concerned, Ouray didn't see any threat in Zhirael and totally enabled him, letting him take one of their eyes in exchange for making the process painless should Langer ever give in.

The next few years were chaotic, but enjoyable. The group continued their adventures, and Langer grew closer to LaPlata. They found something fascinating in each other: LaPlata was drawn toward his warmth, enthusiasm and patience, while Langer... well, he couldn't really describe it. There was LaPlata's curiosity, the way she was slowly opening up and letting her personality bloom, the way she'd happily listen to him ramble about whatever, how easily she got flustered, the mysterious air she had about her, her beauty, the way they just naturally grew on each other... they fell in love in such a way that neither of them noticed until LaPlata mumbled a confession into his chest on a quiet night. Before they knew it, the two were officially dating.

Shortly afterward, however, a certain truth came to light. LaPlata revealed herself to be the angel Lacael, who had come down to the mortal plane to gain a greater understanding of humanity. She had feared this confession for a long time, certain it would cause her new friends to feel betrayed and leave her. But Langer, Ouray, and Khazael didn't have any problem with this. They were already friends with demons, so why not angels as well? Much to LaPlata's gratitude, they didn't treat her any differently and continued their lives as normal.

Zhirael, meanwhile, warmed up to everyone and eventually welcomed the group into his home, willing to offer information about Hell without threatening to murder everyone and/or consume their souls. Usually. They grew so close, in fact, that eventually Langer agreed to give up one of his eyes to Zhirael in exchange for one of Zhirael's own. It was a sign of friendship in trust between the two, and between the group and Zhirael in general. All in all, Langer and co.'s lives were steadily improving, and they couldn't have been happier.

...And then came the day Langer disappeared. With Ouray and Khazael having seen him with an angel before vanishing, they and the rest of Langer's friends had reason to believe it was the work of Heaven, likely to punish LaPlata for straying so far from Heaven and enabling positive relationships between humans and demons. This led to LaPlata's fall from Heaven, Ouray's eventual death, and Zhirael's idea to lead a revolution against Heaven to bring equality to all three planes. Langer had no way of knowing his disappearance would lead to such a drastic change on his home planet; that one single human could sit at the center of an unraveling conspiracy and the efforts to right so many tremendous wrongs.

While he would have been happy to learn that someday all of his friends were able to move on and make happy lives for themselves without him, even going so far as to ensure a brighter future for all of the strangers he never had a chance to meet... well, they were totally wrong about what happened to him. Yes, he had been abducted by an angel, but... not an angel from a Heaven any of them knew.

It was a warm summer afternoon, and Langer and Ouray decided it was a perfect day for ice cream! But, of course, on such a perfect ice cream day, the line was pretty long. While waiting in line, Langer noticed that he had managed to lose their money, and some things were just wrong to steal! Langer asked Ouray to wait in line while he backtracked to find the money and quickly ran off to find it. He poked through some alleys and back streets, and it didn't take too long to find that some weird little rodent with wings and a halo had made off with his Sick Coin. More interested in getting his ice cream dosh back than questioning why some large rat had angelic features - or how it was screaming while he was chasing it - he ran after it and wound up running smack dab into an angel with a scowl that could kill and a glare sharper than the spikes on her clothing.

Even if he had turned around and fled immediately, it would have been too late. As Langer would soon find out, Arella - the angel in question - was visiting from a faraway place. She was from beyond this planet, this galaxy, this universe, this dimension... she was from above all dimensions, in fact. She was one of Them: a group of higher beings who existed at the very fringes of existence in a place called There. They were a collection of beings from all across Entirety who had been given the unique privilege of ascending to a higher state of being upon Their deaths, able to observe the rest of Entirety as They pleased.

Langer wasn't getting this privilege, of course. What was really going on was that They weren't supposed to interact with lower beings since no one was supposed to know They existed. If Arella had been in a better mood maybe she would've just left him alone, since he could've easily assumed she was just a normal angel, but unfortunately for Langer was never in a better mood. As punishment for mildly annoying her by bumping into her while chasing one of her servants as well as for merely seeing her, Arella """had no other choice""" and arrested him (apparently she was also part of Their law enforcement, whoops), taking him back over There with her. Ouray and Khazael, having tired of standing in line and deciding to just scare everyone off so they could get their ice cream for free, witnessed the tail end of this and made a pretty reasonable assumption based on what they had seen.

Over There, Langer was put on trial for his, uh... "crimes", and the judge begrudgingly found him guilty. After all, once someone had seen There they knew too much, so They couldn't just let him go. From what Langer could tell, Arella did this sort of thing pretty often, hence her army of weird chinchilla slaves called Chillies.

Which Langer wound up becoming part of, of course. Arella's punishment for anyone she arrested was to turn them into a Chilly and have them perform menial and often dangerous tasks for her for the rest of eternity. Langer was not super cool with this, but, unfortunately, he didn't really get a choice. Before he knew it he was a tiny, fuzzy, adorable, and a totally expendable part of a completely unfamiliar world. He wasn't happy about being completely ripped away from home and being completely out of contact with his loved ones, but at least now he had more to explore than ever!

The next one or two hundred years were a chaotic mess of danger and trying to avoid Arella's over-the-top wrath... so, well, more danger. As time went on, his work environment started to push his memories back, causing him to forget even his own name. Eventually he wound up on an ordinary mission to a place called the Test Reality, which was in the middle of something called the Competition. What mattered is that Langer wound up getting left behind, and because of this ran into a man named Exuro, who gave him some money to do some pretty simple stuff. With Arella not really caring about individual Chillies thanks to their large numbers, Langer was able to slip under the radar and hang out with Exuro instead at this cool Doll Shop where people sure did get murdered a lot! It was still cool, though. Langer became buds with Exuro, Seraye (the Doll Shop's owner), and the various others who frequented the shop, and eventually Exuro bought him off of Arella entirely.

Since then he's been having a good time tagging along on the Doll Shop squad's different misadventures, though lately he's been kind of wondering what ever happened back home. It's been so long that he can't remember much, but he doesn't want to forget entirely...

If only he realized how close he was to all of his answers!

|| - Powers/Abilities - ||

Langer was formerly an ordinary human without any spectacular abilities, unless you count "having pretty enough eyes to distract Zhirael" as a spectacular ability. He also had pretty good aim, but that went out the window after giving up one of his eyes.

As a Chilly, he's got both eyes back but is also now like maybe 12 inches tall and a chinchilla. He's got cute little wings, but those can't carry him very far. Better than nothing, I guess...?