CW // Massacre, death

All for survival

The Alcaraz family was a family living in Obsculithe known for their sense of community. Everyone in the family contributes to something that helps everyone and they generally appreciate each other’s work. However, they are also well-known for not taking too much help from those not in the family. Everything the family does is simply for the sake of survival.

Another member of the family was born to two strong parents who were looking for an extra hand for monster hunting. They named their newly-born daughter Xena Alcaraz, thinking it was a very pretty name for someone like her. While she wasn’t as powerful as her parents at her age, what made Xena such a precious member of her family was how bold she was. At a very young age, she was already trying to fight small monsters that were stronger than her. Of course, her parents had to stop her from doing so in fear of seeing her getting hurt.

The little brother that brought joy

While Xena was being trained to become a fighter as grandiose as her parents, the latter had another child. This time, they had a son whose name was Helios. While he was too young to do anything for the family, the amount of joy he brought to those around him with his innocent smile was enough to keep the morale high. Xena was especially fond of him and was extremely excited to show him the tricks she learned from her parents...so far, at least. She also enjoyed playing and napping with him in her free time. A dream Xena had was to learn about the world outside of the family with Helios on her side.

Unfortunately, that dream was impossible...

The monster who massacred the Alcaraz

It was a peaceful night. The parents had finished putting the kids to sleep and they were having a heart to heart while watching the stars. Unfortunately, this peace did not last, as they heard a roar coming from a forest nearby. It was unlike any roar they heard, this one instilled fear to even the strongest of fighters. For the first time in a while, the parents feared for their lives, as the source of the roar came to them at the speed of a cheetah and it didn’t take long before the parents engaged in what was going to be their last battle.

Xena woke up in the middle of the night wondering what their parents were doing at that time of the day, only for Xena to notice them fighting a monster that was barely taller than their parents. What was shocking, though, was that both parents were struggling to fight against it.

Her first instinct was to rush to Helios to see if he was okay...only for him to be missing. Where was he? How did this happen?

She heard her name being called by her mother. “Xena! Grab Helios and run as far as you can”, her mother exclaimed. Xena responded by panicking about being unable to find Helios. While they were distracted, the father attempted to fight the monster by himself only to get tackled by another monster who had precious Helios in its hands. Before his wife had the time to react, Helios was no more, as the one keeping him hostage fled the scene, This left the parents with the same monster they had a hard time with. The father switched places with the mother and yelled at Xena to run away as fast as she could by telling her they will meet again after they deal with the monster. The little demon listened to her father and ran as far as she could.

Xena took one last peek to find her mother’s heart in the hands of the monster and her father’s head being grabbed onto by the beast as he struggled to move.

Even an Alcaraz needs help from the outside

Now an orphan, Xena had to find help in Obsculithe even if it was completely against her family’s values. She can’t rely on other people and had to be independent, her parents said. But, screw that! Xena was an orphan because some monster decided to take her family away from her and she didn’t know much about the outside life besides how to kill monsters and how to roast a frog.

Xena was taken in by a teacher who later taught her the other things that were considered important for a demon who wants to live independently, such as how to use weapons other than her axe, how to cook anything other than roasted meat, how to befriend people, and most importantly, how to ask for help. Said teacher would later be the one who saw what was called a bloodthirst incident.

The bloodthirst of an Alcaraz

When Xena was still living with her parents, she learned of the trait that made them such excellent fighters. The Alcaraz had the special ability to enter a state that causes them to go on a rampage and spill as much blood as possible. Not only that, their senses were enhanced and they became physically stronger. To tell if an Alcaraz was in said state, all one had to do was to look for the darkness in their eyes. In other words, if their sclera turned black, it meant they were in the bloodthirst state. Normally, this is trained so that they can switch at will without endangering those they want to protect.

Unfortunately, Xena didn’t receive the proper training, as she was too young to be trained. While in a supervised sparring match with a male classmate who was as strong as her, she got too excited at the idea of fighting someone at her skill level and accidentally went in her bloodthirst state in hopes of winning said match. Instead of hitting her opponent in a way he wouldn’t get too hurt, she started spilling some blood out of him, which caused her teacher to put an end to the battle. This didn’t work very smoothly, as Xena continued to hurt her classmate until he defended himself and caused a scar on her left eye, which made it impossible for it to go back to normal.

After realizing what she had done, she refused to spar with anyone, in fear of becoming the same monster who ended her whole family.

Helping her community, but was it enough?

Because Xena swore off fighting, she decided that instead of asking for help from others, she wanted to be the one they asked help from. To do so, she spent most of her time volunteering for groups who help the poor, such as soup kitchens & shelters. Later on, Xena started helping make food bundles for those in need and even helped raise enough qoins to help the poor get back on their feet and start becoming more independent.

This caused Xena to become a decently well-known demon in Obsculithe and she was easily recognizable by most locals as an angel disguised as a demon. While seeing people’s smiles made her happy, she couldn’t help but feel something was missing. She wished her parents would’ve seen how happy the people in Obsculithe were despite the fact it wasn’t in the family’s goals. She wished she was able to travel with Helios and find more smiles. With everything she learned from her teacher, Xena was well-equipped enough to live independently without needing external help, but she couldn’t help but miss a sense of family. To cope with this, she tried a lot of dangerous tricks, but would usually be stopped by others or would get injured as a result. It did bring her joy, making her continue to be a daredevil.

(Un)fortunately, something happened to her that changed how she was feeling about her life situation.

The ghost girl who gave one of the hardest times of her life

While collecting berries for a special recipe she was planning on making in the forest, Xena was attacked by what seemed to be black limbs with eyes. The culprit reveals themselves to be an innocent-looking little girl in red who was looking for someone to have fun with. Her definition of fun was a lot...different than the default one. Xena quickly realized that as she saw one of the shadowy arms crush a bird that flew past her. Shortly after that, the girl grinned at Xena with malicious intent.

Despite this, though, Xena saw in the little girl’s eyes the same pain she went through when she was a child. The pain of losing a family. The suffering that came from loneliness. She saw a lot of herself in that kid’s eyes, and so she attempted something she never thought she would do, ever.

Xena proposed a game to the little girl, more specifically a daily tea party. “Little girls like tea parties, right?”, she thought to herself. To her surprise, the girl in red accepted to play her game. The first day was the hardest. Xena had to fight her eyed limbs because of how much they wanted to murder her so badly. By the end of the day, she was too exhausted to do anything. The little girl saw this as an opportunity to murder her, but stopped for seemingly no reason then disappeared.

The same story happened for the next few days, which left Xena unable to attend their 7th tea party due to exhaustion. On that day, Xena left a meal and a note saying she can’t play with her on the tea table. The next day, the plate was completely empty & the note disappeared.

The girl in red did not come back until a week later due to loneliness. Even if dealing with her was difficult, Xena decided to take her in as her own. At first, the girl didn’t want to share anything about herself and was mainly interested in murdering the critters that were walking around the home. Despite this, Xena made her try a few hobbies, more specifically drawing. Even though the girl’s drawings were gruesome, it still made her happy to see her not murder insects for fun. The little girl eventually opened up to the demon and claimed herself to be Greta Blakewell, a 14-year old ghost no one wanted to approach because of how dangerous she was.

Start of a trip around Artherium

For a year or two, Xena took care of the little Greta, making sure she had all the love she deserved and taught her many of the values both her family and her teacher passed onto her. While still being a difficult girl to deal with at times, she thought of her as an adoptive daughter and would protect her from any danger even if she was able to defend herself. This caused Greta to have a soft spot for Xena, which caused her to call her mommy.

Despite this, though, Xena also wanted to realize one of their dreams to travel around the world even if she swore off fighting. Seeing Greta made her want to fight monsters so that none of them can separate families ever again. Xena also secretly wanted to find the monsters who took her family away from her and seek vengeance. She grabbed her axe for the first time in years and trained her bloodthirst state so that she can activate it at will. Shortly before leaving Obsculithe, Xena gave Greta to the teacher who taught her since she did not want to endanger her adoptive daughter while on the trip.

Of course, Greta did not like that and she ended up following Xena anyway.

Slowly rebuilding the family she once had

While on her trip around Artherium, Xena did not expect the other regions to be very bright compared to Obsculithe. Thus, she came across the main obstacle of being unable to travel during the day due to her eyesight being horrible. This forced her to travel during the night for a while. Xena also quickly noticed Greta followed her and since she was too far from Obsculithe to bring her home, she decided to take her anyway, which resulted in them discovering the world together. This reminded Xena of her dream of exploring the world with her missing little brother.

During their trip, they met a mercenary who helped them escape from a monster by defeating it with his bare hands. He presented himself as Sirius, a vampire with exceptional resistance to sunlight. Xena soon learned that he had the noble goal to bring hope to those hurt by monsters by taking them down, which caused Xena & Greta to join him in his trip in hopes of taking down the monsters who murdered Xena’s family.

• Xena means "guest/stranger" in Greek, Alcaraz meaning "the cherry" in Arabic. Her alias is Cherry Bomb because of her colors & because of her antics.
• Xena is almost able to pass as a human, being able to retract her fangs & claws at will, as well as hide her tail and change her pupils to be round. The only thing she can't hide are her horns, and she always reassures people by saying it's a crown given by a close one.
• One of her eyes permanently has black sclera. This was a side effect from her bloodthirst incident where she wasn't able to control it.
• Power-wise, she is on par with Sirius in his Maddened State, but gets outshined by him when he's on his Overdrive.
• Xena uses both black and red nail polish, although she has a preference for black. She finds herself having to buy more nail polish than before, though, wonder what's that about.