Neoka Emtratika

Physical Appearance

• Mahogany hair; grown long trailing to knees pre-TToaH; cut to shoulder length during and post-TToaH
• Red eyes
• Fair skinned with a rather pale complexion
• Physically fit with somewhat muscled build
• 6'6" in height
• Sharp canines and nails
• Large scar on right knee
• Three line markings under left eye and across cheek (see refs)
• Eight piercings per ear; 4 upper, 4 lower

Clothing Style

Neoka looks like he wears about the same type of outfit all the time, but that's because if his clothing ever gets dirty or ruined he just morphs himself to a point in time when his clothing was perfectly clean. Across all his outfits, he always wears a mahogany colored headband and cloak with a red brooch. He also commonly wears gold jewelry, including earrings and a few rings on his fingers. He frequently wears some kind of gold beaded/chained/braided accessory hanging off his belt. He almost always wears a belt and jeans that are torn in some manner. He always seems to wear a long sleeved red shirt with the sleeve ends having a V-shape cut into them, although sometimes they have varying designs other than that. Neoka also has this weird tendency to never tuck in his shirt on only the left side. Don't ask why.

His most common look during the War included a unadorned version of his red shirt. For his jeans, his right knee usually has a hole in the pant leg, and his knee is usually wrapped in bandages. He wears some rings on his fingers and a gold beaded chain from his belt.

After the War his outfit changes slightly. His shirt has cross-stitchings on the insides of his sleeves, and it is also stitched around the midriff and across from there to his hip as well. He still wears his rings and the same beads from his belt.

After the events of TToaH, he opts for a shirt that has the inner cross-stiches in the sleeves but does not have the stitches on the midriff, and he wears belts crossing his chest/abdomen and similar belts on his arms. He also wears a leather brace over his right knee along with a gold brace on top of that. He has a slightly different chain on his belt this time, and although he wears the same rings on his left hand, he wears a fingerless glove on his right hand instead and only has one ring on his middle finger on the outside of the glove instead. The gold brace on his knee is intended to slowly remove the lingering corruption from Shana's rifting from his knee injury, so once that task is completed, he stops wearing it and only wears a leather brace instead.

Personality

Neoka is a rather complicated young man who has a cheeky and friendly personality that is often overshadowed by his lack of self worth and constant feelings of guilt and uneasiness. On the surface, Neoka is a perfectly confident and charming person who is generally agreeable if not somewhat snarky. He has a strong sense of ethics that he sticks to, and even though he may act reluctant about it, he will often go out of his way to help other people since he can't stand to simply not act and help others when he is capable of doing so. During his youth he was much more outgoing and rather mischievous, enjoying acting out and finding excitement wherever he could. Following the rather traumatic events of the War, which involved him falling under the control of the false goddess of death, Shana, Neoka has become a lot more mellowed out and incredibly "angsty" from the guilt of his actions. Neoka has an alternate personality, referred to as Pain or "the Liar," who mostly took control to carry out Shana's will, so Neoka does not have a lot of clear memories of what exactly he did during the War or what people he encountered. However, he understands that Pain committed many atrocious acts while in control, and Neoka's guilt over allowing this to happen has clearly affected his ability to exist following the War. He feels that he needs to atone for Pain's actions, yet has no clear goal of what this atonement ought to be or what the extent of this penance should be, so Neoka assumes that he just has to help basically everyone decent he comes across and go out of his way to solve other peoples' problems to balance out the bad he has done. Unfortunately Neoka doesn't see to have any intention of "ending" this period of atonement, so he constantly allows other people to walk over him or tolerates more than he should because he genuinely believes he deserves and hardship or punishment set upon him.

Despite this angsty self-punishing attitude of his, Neoka is anything but dreary and brooding about it. He tends to swing between having a "why me?" mentality about whatever conflicts he encounters and having a "I totally deserve this" mentality whenever misfortune befalls him. He may complain and act reluctant about having to deal with so many things thrown his way, but he is thoroughly resigned to having to struggle through his life, since it's only fair considering how "terrible of a person he is." Neoka tends to mask his confidence and self-worth issues with thinly veiled overconfidence and bravado, and most of his complaining is exaggerated and theatrical. Neoka doesn't enjoy being vulnerable and genuine about his feelings, since he doesn't really think they matter, so acting confidence and generally flippant is just a method to avoid addressing the issue. Although he is a little grandiose and mopey sometimes, he's a very sweet person that doesn't really want a lot of recognition or attention for his actions, but unfortunately he always seems to get noticed by all the problem-starters of the Eternity. He's very loyal and protective of the people he cares about, and once he sets his mind to something there is very little that can turn him away from his goal. However, since his powers focus on shapeshifting into other things, he sometimes has issues with his own identity. He rarely knows how to answer personal questions and tends to be apathetic about them anyway, both because he rarely thinks about such things and also because he doesn't find himself  important enough that it would matter anyway.

Those closest to him will note that Neoka still has traces of his cheeky and quirky personality when he doesn't have to deal with strangers or acquaintances. Neoka tends to be a big doormat to most people and is quick to throw up his sarcastic demeanor when he feels like he's in the public eye. In more private settings, he can open up more and speak more transparently about his feelings without his overly-emotional and ironically angsty front. Even though Neoka comes off as rather weird and kind of a mess, he generally feels pretty boring and generally "normal" compared to a lot of the strange characters he often encounters. He frequently gets exasperated by the even more exaggerated quirkiness of the people he usually interacts with, such as Isaac or Syke, but he follows such people around loyally and has a hard time taking control of situations or saying no to whatever oddness they may lead him into. Neoka would love to be more like a role model like his legendary ancestor, the first Morpher, Nanikai, but he often feels like too much of a hot mess to actually live up to such expectations. That doesn't mean he won't try to be a good person and do the right thing, but it'll be a hot day in the Void before he actually believes he's worthy of such distinction.

Abilities

• Can morph into anyone who has, is, or ever will be along with tapping into their memories and skill sets 
  • For a long while, he loses the ability to morph reliably due to feeling guilt over using it for ill deeds during the War, along with generally losing confidence in himself and not having a strong sense of identity anymore
  • Even when he eventually relearns how to use his morphing effectively, he's kinda lazy and doesn't use it to its full OP potential, since he feels like that would make things way too easy on himself
• Can also clone himself indefinitely, with each of these clones capable of morphing at his normal capacity
• Raynbo rifting - rank 1/5
• Virtually immortal and can recover from normally fatal injuries relatively quickly
  • This highly accelerated regeneration and resilience to injury comes at the cost of a reduced lifespan, which all Nanikans have compared to standard Ela
• Extremely high pain tolerance
• Highly agile, flexible, and has very quick reflexes (if he's actually paying attention)
• Capable of using swords well enough, but they're not his preferred weapon
• Skilled with improvised weapons and is generally adaptable to most situations
• Skilled at dancing, although he prefers to dance "poorly"

Strengths

• Resilient, persistent, and enduring
• Has a strong code of ethics and morals, selfless, and can easily adapt to various situations
• Loyal, down to earth, and extremely passionate and devoted to his morals and those he bonds with
• Generally easy to approach,

Weaknesses

• A total pushover, a glutton for punishment, and always seems to attract weird people and a whole lot of trouble
• Irresponsible, easily flustered/exasperated, and often throws himself in harm's way to protect those around him
• Melodramatic, tends to put his own happiness last, and doesn't thinks anything he does can actually redeem him
• Lacks confidence and self worth, has issues coming to terms with his own identity, and generally feels uncomfortable acknowledging himself and being in his own skin

Backstory

As the descendant of Nanikai, Neoka was destined to become the Morpher and join the league of Lord Dalia's Court. His father left his family shortly after Neoka was born, and his mother died not long after from a combination of illness and grief of the abandonment. Neoka was primarily raised by his grandmother, Netera, and a close friend of his mother, Rivera, alongside his two older sisters, Neoni and Nakeeta, and his "cousin," Neridalt. His upbringing was generally strict from his grandmother and most of the community of their small village of Neonikai, with their expectations of him to live up to his ancestor's name pushing him to desire and seek greatness from himself. Neoka was mostly eager to fulfill this rather heroic image set out for him, but it also became a rather draining endeavor to meet everyone's expectations. He came to view Rivera as more of a mother while growing up, since she was much more gentle and fair with her expectations of him.

Some time during his childhood, Neoka was attacked by a strange beast while playing out in the fields with Neridalt. The creature was not native to Nanika, and inflicted a severe bite wound to his knee before other villagers came to their aid and slew the beast. Neoka would not realize until years later that this creature was afflicted with tainted Deyth rifting and sent to corrupt him by followers of the false goddess of death, Shana. The corruption did not seem take effect until much later and lay dormant within him for years. A few years later, Neoka ran away from home and ended up in Emdrica, although even now he wouldn't be able to give you a clear answer why or how it happened. He was taken in by De Jack Zilvas and raised alongside his own son, Isaac, whom Neoka became best friends with. 

Shana's corruption seemed to be suppressed for some time by being absorbed by an alter ego created in Neoka's mind through use of his morphing abilities, which he unintentionally created to help him survive and cope while wandering alone in the Demon's Realm before he made it to Emdrica. However, during his teen years this alter ego reemerged upon the resurrection of Shana and then joined her in the War against Lord Dalia. He committed many atrocities without Neoka being fully conscious of his actions, and Neoka does not have very many clear memories of these years aside from the occasional visits back to Emdrica when his alter ego would allow him to come back to consciousness.

After Shana was defeated, Neoka regained control of himself and inadvertently faked his own death, later deciding to use this to his benefit to try and start over. He currently wanders the Eternity, frequently stopping by Emdrica and searching for a way to redeem himself for his actions during the War. However, the looming presence of his wartime allies, the Enlightened, is becoming a greater threat to him and the few friends he's managed to remember.

When he's not doing all that important canon nonsense about flailing his way through a redemption arc, he's getting into horrible misadventures that he rarely knows how he gets into and really has stopped questioning why anymore.

Trivia:

Associated song: Fall