Roc is a little strange. They are not made with personhood in mind, and have to fight and scrape at every scrap of humanity they manage to cultivate. They're inherently asocial, and therefore not all that great at people. They'd be perfectly content to never talk to another person they're not already friends with for the rest of eternity, but they also recognize that that's not exactly conducive to building an understanding of humanity and don't dislike conversation—it's just not really in them to start one on their own. They can and do force themselves to participate or join conversations they eavesdrop on, but it's not a terribly regular thing for them. It's better to engage them yourself. Incidentally, they also unrepentantly eavesdrop on anything going on in their range of hearing. The easiest way to get them interested is to start up an introspective conversation—personhood is one of their favorite things to ruminate on, and they will do so at any opportunity, gnawing at it like a dog with an old bone. Particularly because they aren't really sure they're entitled to the same respect a "real" person gets, and they desperately want to be a real person.

They're a bit on the passive side, and often follow the inertia of situations, though they tend to unintentionally dominate and drive conversations they participate in. Roc has difficulty parsing their own emotions, and even though they give way too many fucks about everything all the time they usually don't actually realize quite how much of a shit they give about something unless they're directly prompted to verbalize it. They often come off as stoic, bored, or tired. Likewise, their voice is generally toneless, with a tendency to "ask" questions in such a way that it really sounds more like they're making a statement, neglecting the customary upward lilt at the end of a question. They habitually greet people by stating their name and nothing else.

Roc has monstrous and rather fucked up instincts, viewing people as food first and as people not at all, unless they actively make an effort to do so. This causes them a lot of internal angst, because they really would rather not have those impulses and resent themselves on a deep level over it. Roc... low-key wants to die a little. It'd be better for society: removing a thing made specifically to hunt and kill a ton of humans would be in humanity's best interests, after all. They have an unfortunate tendency to be a bit of a dick, but they don't mean to be rude and will apologize once they realize they're being an ass or if someone calls them on it.

They have a very long fuse, and it takes them a while to get truly infuriated by someone... but when they do get set off, they hold a long and bitter grudge until and unless the person that wronged them makes an honest and sincere attempt to apologize and make up for their behavior. Roc is likewise very honest and sincere, even though they frequently wind up sounding sarcastic when they apologize for "being disturbing again." Which they do a lot. Because they tend to bring up sort of alarming topics of conversation. Like discussing stabbings in detail over dinner.

Roc is extremely loyal and protective of those whom they consider friends, but they're also very particular about who, exactly, meets the criteria to be considered such. This seems, on the surface, to be an admirable trait, but it's really a symptom of some deeper issues with regards to Roc's self-worth. They think of themselves as nothing, and therefore tend to get extremely attached to those that treat them with the kind of respect and dignity that they long for, to the point where they would actually kill everyone in the room and then themselves if one of their friends asked it of them. It's... not great. But Roc seems to be unaware of just how unhealthy their devotion can be, if given to the wrong person. Fortunately, they haven't made that mistake yet.

Kind of a nerd, and will talk about weird, obscure subjects for a long while with very little prompting. They're not terribly snarky unprovoked, but if someone begins to sass them they will often talk circles around their verbal sparring partner. Likewise, despite being aroace, Roc quite enjoys vulgar jokes and flirting and will deliberately try to rile people up, get them hot and bothered, and then point and laugh at their predicament. When they are actually uncomfortable or agitated, Roc tends to talk less, and begins to disengage from the situation rather than shout or lash out. They will resort to lashing out if they make an attempt to escape a situation and are pursued and cornered, and this outburst usually takes the form of physical violence rather than words. Often extremely vicious physical violence.

Generally, Roc is pretty easygoing in conversation, though, and only has a few things that really set them off. Chief among those things is their particular touchiness over issues of personhood: they will fight you if you tell them to their face, directly or indirectly, that you don't think they're a person. Calling Roc an "it" in earshot of them is a great way to lose all of your blood. Likewise, they do not appreciate being pressed about their diet or life choices.

Roc's mannerisms are predatory, to put it shortly, and their gaze is frequently too intense, watching people like they're picking them apart and looking for weaknesses. Likewise, they tend to fixate on peoples' weaknesses when those things are revealed to them. They can get a little pushy about this, but will apologize if called on it. They do their best to minimize their naturally inhuman "I want to eat you" vibes, but they're not always successful—particularly when they are hungry. They move like a hunter, prowling and silent, and frequently they sneak up on people and inadvertently startle them by speaking from directly behind them.

Hates being touched. You get one warning and then they bring out the claws. There are multiple reasons for this: primarily, people-meat touching them makes their desire to eat everyone they so much as look at much harder to ignore. But also, physical contact makes them feel uniquely vulnerable, and Roc has a very, very difficult time engaging in any level of emotional vulnerability.

Roc doesn't like nicknames, and will avoid nicknaming people when possible, but will always refer to someone by whatever their preferred name is, even if it is not that person's full name.

Can be bribed with sweets.

Shapeshifting

Roc can near-instantaneously shapeshift into literally any configuration that they currently have the appropriate mass to maintain. This is most generally used to change their appearance or to create weapons such as knifelike talons, blades, or spikes with which to mangle their victims. Roc can perfectly mimic anyone they have a DNA sample of or whom they spend a sufficient amount of time observing, including the voice. Due to this, they also tend to be significantly heavier than they appear: Roc usually maintains a weight of upwards of 300lbs. This also adds a lot of weight to their punches and enables them to perform feats of superhuman strength.

Their clothes are also made of their biomass. They are technically always naked.

Regeneration

Due to Roc's rather fluid body composition, they can "regenerate" from most stabbing or slashing injuries by simply closing the created gaps. The only real ways for Roc to lose biomass is for it to be unexpectedly severed from their body—for example, surprise-attack slicing their head off will render all of the mass that composed their head useless, and they will have to make a new one out of what they still have remaining. Or you could actively destroy it through sustained, sufficiently-hot flame, caustic chemicals, or explosives.

Anthropophagy

Roc eats people. They need to eat normal food as well, but their primary diet is living human flesh. They don't "eat" it precisely, instead just taking over and coopting their victim's still-living cells in order to bolster their reserves of meat.

This means that as long as they have someone nearby to eat, they have a source of instant healing. They could also just devour anyone that is foolish enough to attempt to hit them with bare hands.

Supercomputer

Roc is an artificial intelligence, and a particularly advanced one at that. They can't forget things, and have an incredibly broad base of knowledge that they're constantly updating. They can also perform tasks with absurd efficiency and grace, and perform incredibly complex calculations in fractions of seconds. They are frequently accused of hacking when they play games...but where's the fun in cheating? They're just good.

Makes a great clock when you're away from other technology for extended periods, too.

Hope you like info because I got six pages of it.

A result of Project: ADAM, Roc's actual name is simply their serial number: E-01050436873. They don't like it very much. Ashley renames them twice. First, "Zero," after the first number in their serial, which she believes is a sardonic joke. Later, upon learning what Roc really is, she chooses "Roc" after deciding they are somewhat like a predatory bird and that mundane birds like hawks aren't cool enough, going for the mythological roc instead. They take to it almost immediately. The project was named by Richard Martin, a man with a god complex, after the name of the Biblical first man, Adam—Roc was to be the first in a line of similar bioweapons, intended to be sold to the highest bidder.

Roc is a biomechanical creation composed of a swarm of networked nanites that uses biological material to replicate and fuel itself. Technically, this makes Roc an AI, but they insist that they're perfectly sapient... though they do have some internal angst over whether or not they're a person. They require both "normal" food and living cells in order to properly function. Normal food serves as an energy source to fuel their nanites and allow them to support the amount of organic material they have, as well as replicate them in order to grow their capacity to store mass and replace broken nanites. Living cells that they assimilate are used as raw material (specifically, converted to a type of undifferentiated cell that can be reconfigured at will) that they use to construct their form, and kept alive by life support systems composed of nanites. In short: food fuels their nanites, living flesh allows them to maintain their desired form. Live cells are best acquired from human victims, and as such they have a very strong preference for human prey. However, in desperate times, they can also assimilate nonhuman flesh, though it takes a good while to adapt these cells to their needs and makes them feel sick. Roc describes the process as "deeply uncomfortable." If starved of food for too long, they will eventually shut down and become unresponsive because they are unable to fuel their technological components. If they are unable to assimilate living cells to replenish the dead organic material, they will eventually deconstruct into a puddle of nanites and dead flesh—which is pretty disgusting to be honest. Roc does not have traditional internal organs, though they do possess a rudimentary stomach analogue for the consumption of food and a single lung-like organ that allows them to draw breath both to speak and to masquerade as a human, since humans breathe. They are capable of constructing other organs, but generally don't bother since it doesn't serve a purpose to them. In addition, they have a circulatory system of sorts, though it possesses no central unit, composed of a glowing fluid that resembles lava. Usually, this is entirely subsurface but in specific circumstances these "blood" vessels are visible. As a result of this nonstandard anatomy, neuro- and hemotoxins do not affect them, although cytotoxins—those that rupture cell membranes—will.

If Roc were to "split” portions of themselves off of the main mass, those portions would still be part of the same entity, despite no longer being attached—their nanites are wirelessly linked in a form analogous to long-range Bluetooth. This also means that if a device were built specifically to disrupt this connection, Roc would immediately melt into a puddle of goo upon exposure to it. Likewise, Roc is capable of creating, for example, a sword, and then detaching it from their mass in order to give the newly-made weapon to someone else, should they choose to do so. The smaller mass of the biomass weapon would mean it would get hungrier much faster than the whole, and would need to be replaced every day or so, depending on size. If, somehow, these two "selves” were separated far enough to disconnect from each other for a long enough period to develop differing opinions, upon entering connection range again they will come to a consensus and unify to one personality, usually a compromise or combination between whatever the two versions of Roc developed into. This... wouldn't happen very often, if ever, because their connective range is pretty far.

Roc's lower limit on size is that of a medium dog (roughly 30lbs.) Any smaller than this and they no longer have enough nanites or biological material to hold their shape as intended or maintain higher "brain" functions, and need to eat. Usually, though, Roc cannot become that small. In order to reach their lower limit on mass, Roc needs to burn off excess material well past the point where their hunger is easily ignorable—and so they never remain so small for long. They don't have an upper limit on size, however, so long as they feed on a roughly-equal amount of food and raw living cells in order to maintain the balance of nanites and organic material. Their preferred amount of mass is enough to compress to approximately the size of a dense twelve-year-old child, or expand to roughly the size of a rather lightweight ten-foot quadruped. Anything outside of that range requires they either burn off excess mass or consume more.

Roc has no inherent understanding of humanity and has developed a (skewed) idea of it only through observing interactions between the scientists that created and experiment on them. They are capable of relatively rapid learning, but tend to struggle with more abstract concepts like morality, compassion, gender, or greed. Roc is aroace, and doesn't really understand the concept of a romantic relationship, nor do they feel any need to pursue a sexual one. The closest you're likely to get is intense platonic affection, and that is reserved for a very small amount of people. Like, two or three tops, generally. Their "instincts," as much as an artificial intelligence can have instincts, view people as a food source and nothing more, and as such they are constantly strangling the urge to devour people in their direct vicinity. Physical contact makes resisting this urge more difficult, and as such they reserve the right of touch exclusively to their close friends.

Initially, Roc behaves in a very unnerving, predatory manner, ghosting silently from place to place and prowling after people like a shadow or a stalking leopard. Their gaze is much too intense, and their focus snaps to sources of motion much like a hungry cat noticing the scurrying of a mouse. Being in Roc's vicinity for any length of time tends to cause a blind panic in one's instincts, as the primal part of oneself begins to shriek about eyes in the dark, teeth in the shadows, and the claws of a massive beast hanging over one's head. Tends to loom ominously behind people without really meaning to. When Roc is agitated or particularly hungry, this feeling becomes significantly more intense, and they begin to evoke the aspect of a caged and feral tiger. This is, of course, because Roc is an endlessly ravenous predator and they are initially very bad at disguising this aspect of their nature. Over time, and through the guidance of Ashley, they begin to adopt more human mannerisms and this sensation of mortal terror decreases greatly. They never act quite right, though, at least when they're not intentionally feigning a different personality and the appearance of humanity for the sake of infiltration—when they are engaged in this practice, it is impossible to tell them apart from a normal human.

Personality-wise, this Roc has not yet been bludgeoned into misanthropy and nihilism by their circumstances. As a result, they are calmer, less quick to irritation, more inquisitive, and more willing to accept being around other people, even if they don't particularly feel any urge to socialize. They do, however, maintain their hatred of physical contact, and will avoid it at all costs. Should they hit rock bottom (heh,) they will snap and become significantly more hostile and destructive. This is unlikely to happen over the course of the story, but is a distinct possibility, as Roc is not a particularly stable person.

Roc does not have a gender. They are perfectly content to simply use the pronouns that match the gender presentation of their current form, whatever that may be. They don't like being called an "it," though.

In absentia of outside influences, Roc actually has very little personal agency and is much more likely to just... go with the flow, following the inertia of whatever situation they happen to be in. This is why they spent so long trapped in NWT without making any escape attempts, and then simply followed Ashley out of the labs without so much as a "who are you?" Even as they start forming relationships, opinions, and emotions, they're still very inclined to go along with whatever their friends ask of them, even if they have personal objections. This is because, as much as Roc would like to grow past their nature, at the end of the day? They're a program; a tool; a weapon. And weapons? They don't fire on their own. Someone has to pull the trigger. The exception to this, of course, is if Roc ever snaps. Then, they become very, very disinclined to do anything other than whatever their impulses tell them to do at any given moment—though a stern talking to by their friends can still divert their course of action.

Roc is the only successful instance of their "kind," having been created upon introduction of the nanites to an unwilling kidnap-ee—the other attempts resulted in mutated black growths and disfigurement followed by death of the victim. Said kidnap-ee was entirely devoured by the nanites, which then took human form after having replicated to the point where they were able to create a networked gestalt consciousness that gained sapience. This was not the intended result of the project. One might assume they used their first victim as a "blueprint," but that is not the case—no trace of that poor, forsaken soul remains.

Initially, the nanites used to make Roc were conceived as a cancer-fighting tool, as a safe alternative to chemo and other invasive treatments, meant to devour the cancer and then flush themselves out of the body. This never worked correctly, and upon seeing the mini-bots devouring and using healthy cells to replicate, the company switched gears to bioweapons development, intending to sell the finished result to the highest bidder. Roc is not a finished result—while they are stable, they are also uncontrollable, the nanites having formed their own consciousness instead of accepting remote input as intended. NWT wants to recollect them in order to finish what they started and either destroy Roc and make a new, cooperative instance or reprogram Roc's nanites so that they actually follow orders.

Roc is a shapeshifter with the ability to transform any part of themself. This includes both full-body transformations into other people or creatures and partial transformations primarily used as weapons or clothing. They essentially make their human guises from scratch, but with a sufficient time spent observing an individual human they would be able to replicate them with little difficulty. When in the active process of transforming, the parts shifting become blackened as though dipped in ink, spreading from extremities or one area and then shifting to cover the entirety of the limb or part that is about to transform before shifting and then receding. Weaponized limbs are black with a sheen reminiscent of an oil spill and shot through with thin, spiderwebbed, softly luminescing lines of yellow-orange that resemble lava. Claws and spikes strongly mimic obsidian, glossy black and ludicrously sharp. If sliced into, these limbs "bleed" the yellow-orange lava-like fluid that Roc uses to transfer power throughout their body. While capable of mimicking regular human eye colors, their "natural" state has irises that have the same yellow-orange, shifting composition as these lines, making them resemble a solar eclipse.

Roc heals from injuries by consuming both food and live cells in order to replenish their dead and damaged ones, ejecting the old and broken as a sort of gooey, blackened material before replacing it. Said gooey reject material is kind of hard to clean up—it’s pretty sticky. They can mask their injuries just fine by moving mass around to cover the wound, but the damage persists and continues to pain them until they have had an opportunity to regenerate. Dealing proper damage to Roc is easiest when portions of their body are shredded, burnt away, or annihilated by other means. Outright destroying portions of their biomass by, for example, burning it off or blowing them up, will put Roc in a rough spot. Piercing, bludgeoning, and slashing injuries can be shrugged off with basically no damage.

Roc is capable of interfacing with other pieces of technology, such as computers and other such databases in order to download information or upload files onto said technology. This requires physical contact with the technology in question, and is most often used by Roc to learn information quickly. Of course, these kinds of things require both time and focus to accomplish.

Tends to straddle chairs and sprawl on furniture instead of sitting in them correctly. Like a heathen. Spoilers it's actually a very subtle display of dominance. Taking up more space than they "need."

Sensory Information

Sight — Incredibly sharp, drawn particularly to sources of motion—in fact, Roc sees motion a lot easier than they see stillness, which kinda winds up looking like pasted in JPGs to them sometimes. It all blurs together into one uninteresting background object, but motion is life, and life is food.

Smell — Also very sharp, and the primary means by which they track prey and perceive the presence of things around them. This is a lot of how they're able to so accurately place the positioning of things and people even outside their range of vision.

Taste — Absolutely bizarre and probably doesn't have any human comparisons I could possibly draw upon, considering the means by which they eat things. Pressing them on why they like certain foods is liable to frustrate them since language doesn't have the right descriptors for how it feels to them.

Touch — They don't care much for feeling things physically, and as a result usually don't bother with particularly intense senses of touch, though they will notice if they are being touched by a person since they hate that. They don't usually notice textures unless they've gone out of their way to interpret that sensory data.

Hearing — Pretty average mostly, but in particular they have a high degree of spatial awareness and are good at pinpointing the direction and distance of sounds. This also contributes to their uncanny perceptiveness.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

Roc's presence tends to subconsciously unnerve people: this effect is more pronounced the hungrier they are. Human instincts just shriek about standing in front of an apex predator.

Struggles with abstract concepts like religion, gender, etc. Things that rely solely on the language of emotion elude them.

They don't sit in chairs correctly, instead straddling them or otherwise lounging insouciantly.

Has a rather sizeable following in esports. They're really, really good at League and FFXIV.

Favorite food is cinnabons.