Takara

Takara is a mischievous ray of sunshine. Happiness comes easy to her and is pretty boundless, her constant wide grin difficult to get rid of for long. She tends to stay joyous even in bad situations, which might lead some to assume that she's stupid, but that wouldn't be a wise conclusion. Her enthusiasm and vast curiosity can rival a child’s and she's just as likely to get up to trouble or throw a tantrum. There’s no peace and quiet with her since her boisterous antics are meant to carry and demand attention. However unlike a child the damage she can cause is far greater.

Improvisation is a big part of Takara's character and is incredibly helpful when she runs into tools and situations she hasn’t seen before. She thinks on her feet and is quick to come up with a plan in face of danger, though she often fails to think them through and runs into unforeseen consequences. Her spontaneous and poorly considered choices have bitten her in the butt many times before, but so far, she hasn’t learnt since her creativity never fails to get her through mostly unsaved, especially when she’s picking fights or disregarding social rules.

Her self-confidence is never ending and she is incredibly proud of her strength, to the point it can be unsettling for her enemies. Her bravery isn’t anything to sneeze at either – she dives head first into any kind of trouble that looks like fun. All attempts to frighten her have always backfired and only added fuel to her adventure craving heart. And her heart craves a lot. A life in poverty developed a constant want for more than she has, especially when it comes to valuables like gold and jewellery.

While she tends to hold her word, if it gets in the way of her goals, like a shiny trinket, she won’t bat an eye before going against it since she's only ever truly loyal to herself. That doesn't mean she can't be motivated or doesn't want to help or do good for others. Rather the opposite, she's friendly, always down to talk with anyone, and if she's fascinated by them, she's likely to hang around and look for things they might enjoy. Takara's pretty supportive of anyone she meets and she will scream encouragements in their direction at a drop of a hat. However her delivery is often brash and her thoughts only half-formed when they leave her mouth, so have the time she tends to say the wrong thing and might cause more hurt than good.

Having spent most of her life on foot Takara never learnt organizational skills and always acts in a hurry, going through places like a hurricane and leaving a mess. Her notes are impossible to read, her work often sloppy and her home is in a constant state of chaos. Not that it matters much, since she's never there, instead on the hunt for new things to try out, travelling to unseen lands and taking on challenges. It's her favourite pastime, often tied closely together with her occupation.

Even if Takara wanted to, she'd be unable to stop, since she can’t stay put for long and simply can't live without open air. Being confined annoys her and leaves her with no outlets for her buzzing energy to go, further driving her away from settling in one place. So while she might not be able to properly take care of the house, she shines not only able to survive, but thrive in the wilderness no matter what the world throws at her.

Height: 188cm (6’2) Weight: 80kg (176lbs)

Just like her personality, Takara easily stands out from the crowd due to her impressive height and well-built muscular body that she achieved through years of training and treasure hunting. A glance is enough to tell she’s a fighter, if not by the size of her biceps then by the amount of little pale scars littering her peach toned figure.

Her most outstanding feature is her thick long golden hair. When down it reaches past her butt, though she usually keeps it in a high ponytail only leaving the fringe to stand up on its own and frame her face like a golden halo. She has an oval shaped face, tiny ears that hint at her poorer than average hearing, a straight, slightly down turned and pointy nose, thinner than standard for women lips that hide treacherous fangs that can poison, her upper lip always painted dark blue and large eyes with the sclera and the iris the same blue colour hiding slit shaped pupil.

Clothing style:

Loose and comfy are her go-to. Her wardrobe mostly consists of yellow, orange and blue hues, with violets and purples sometimes thrown in as well (she has no issue masquerading as a shiny, she’s fearless!). A red accent can be found here and there. Her own comfort and freedom of movement are of upmost importance and if an article of clothing doesn’t offer both she will never wear it (well, okay, there are rare occasions on which she will subjugate herself to this torture, but never for a long period of time). This can be in the form of loose and light clothes, or tighter-fitting ones that are stretchy and comfortable, don’t stifle her. Anything that gets in the way of her grip, like long sleeves or gloves that cover the fingers, are out of the question. When it comes to patterns, she isn’t too picky about it, yet spider related and vaguely flowery designs never fail to catch her eye.

Jewelry is an absolute must, her hair pins being the most consistently worn ones, but she’s happy with any sort of golden (never silver, she’s not second best!) trinket. The only exception would be rings since she finds them uncomfortable and constantly getting in the way, although she does acknowledge their usefulness in a fist fight.

Weaponry:

• Katana
• Tanto
• Sai

Inventory:

• Hair pins – she has quite the collection of them and can wear anywhere between two to six of them at a time. The one made by her mother, with a red flower at the end, is always present unless she needs a cohesive set for a special occasion. She usually pokes them into her hair tie.
• Rough mapping supplies – they usually consist of pieces of charcoal and paper, sometimes with ink and/or a straight edge thrown in there too. She uses them to take notes and draw places as needed on her treasure hunts.

Colour swatches:

1-Skin 2-Hair 3-Eyes/lipstick/all blue areas 4-Top/gold 5-Top pattern/blue sword 6-Pants pattern 7-Pants pattern/all red areas 8-Pants/yellow weapon detailing 9-Base layer/obi 10-Weapon blades

Ability: Unnerve - makes the foe nervous and unable to eat Berries.

Moves:

• Sucker punch | Dark | Physical |100% accuracy | 70 power – deals damage and has a priority of +1. However, the move only works if the target uses a direct attack in the same turn. If the target is not preparing an attack, Sucker Punch will fail. Moves with a higher priority always go first, regardless of a Pokémon's speed. If two moves with the same priority are used, the faster Pokémon goes first as usual.
• Discharge | Electric | Special | 100% accuracy | 80 power – deals damage and has a 30% chance of paralyzing the target(s).
• Bug Buzz | Bug | Special | 100% accuracy | 90 power – deals damage and has a 10% chance of lowering the target's Special Defense by one stage. Stats can be lowered to a minimum of -6 stages each.
• Poison Jab | Poison | Physical | 100% accuracy | 80 power – deals damage and has a 30% chance of poisoning the target.

Former moves:

• Thief | Dark | Physical | 100% accuracy | 60 power – deals damage and steals the target's held item, if the user is not holding an item. Replaced by Poison Jab.

Background: The Teiko family was never big or had any status. However some of its members had talents for divination of calling upon the deceased kind. Their name came to an end when Natsuko and Hinata had two daughters, Mitsuko and Kasumi, and thus failed to have a single son to carry on their name. Though their talents continue to live on.

They have lived in Radiant Harbour for generations and it continued to be so until the pair’s second child fell in love with a foreigner that came to Sun Empire on a merchant ship he was working for. Haruki stayed in Radiant Harbour for a while, fully intending to settle down here where the love of his life lived, especially after they married, but server hardships befell the land and with a heavy heart the two moved to Jade Imperium looking for a better life there.

Life: Takara was born in Jade Imperium, during a rough patch in its history when the lands were in bad shape, in a small poor village called Heidai. She was Kasumi and Haruki’s little ray of sunshine, their precious treasure so they picked a name to represent that. Little did they know how nicely it would fit into her persona.

Despite living in poverty Takara was a very joyful child, always running around and spreading her warmth. It was further fuelled by the wonderful stories her parents told her, some made up, some real. None captured her attention quite like the ones about her mother’s homeland. Though she didn’t have many people to share them with, since in the whole village there were only five other kids, four boys and one far younger girl. The boys weren’t very accepting of her and she constantly had to prove that she’s just as good as them if not better and thus often got herself into dangerous situations.

As she got older Takara started to understand how sad their life was: her father had to work all day long so they could eat, her mother always busy taking care of their home if not working in the fields with him and Takara had to help out a lot. However what she could do was limited, which led her to picking up stealing, just small things no one would remember. Whenever she got caught, she’d have to face dire repercussions, both of her parents furious with such behaviour, yet it never stopped her. For one it was fun, and for two if she could sneak the stolen goods unnoticed, they would have a nicer dinner or get something they really needed for basic life. No amount of scolding could outmatch that.

Actually it was thanks to that bad habit Takara found her true passion – the thrill of a hunt. In a traveller’s basket of apples she found an old map – never before had she seen such a beautiful thing before. She showed it to her friends and even though they couldn’t read what was written on it they did manage to follow the pictures leading to a big X. It had been an exciting day and it turned into something even greater when they actually found something. It was a small box full of junk, probably not the thing the map was leading to, but you couldn’t prove it to their small hearts. When her parents found out they started playing treasure seeking games with her and she loved every second of it.

Besides that, Takara’s father started preparing her for life, teaching important lessons about surviving on her own. She also pestered other villagers for more skills, learnt how to handle a tanto from her friend’s ex-soldier parent, how to hunt from another. She even tried to learn a little reading, but that didn't go so well, since hardly anyone in their village could. Having a group of friends kept her focus from wavering because they were often interested in learning the same things and she strived to be the best amongst them.

When she was old enough, her parents took her to work in the rice fields with them. It was far from the sort of work she enjoyed or wanted to do, thus she would often complain but go along with them anyway. They needed every coin they could get and for now Takara wasn’t able to do anything more profitable, yet it left her restless, she needed something more dangerous, exciting and breath-taking. Surprisingly, such a thing found her when a treasure hunter came through their village in pursuit of his next target.

One look at how finely the man was dressed and the wonderful things he carried and Takara immediately knew that was what she wanted to be. Her parents didn’t agree, which ended up in a big family feud and the treasure hunter refused to take her under his wing. She didn’t care and at night sneaked out after him anyway. He tried to shoo her back home, but she was impossible to shake off and followed him regardless of how hard it was too keep up till sometime down the line her persistence and resourcefulness won him over and he accepted her as a student.

She spent years training under him, having to earn her lessons and his respect along the way. She wrote letters to her parents and even managed a couple of visits here and there, though none were as wild as the first one after she ran away. At some point it was the man who had to struggle to keep up with her and she freely could take and fulfil her own jobs. Not long after their ways split and she travelled on her own searching for things others overlooked. As far as she was concerned her life was going great.

Once she turned seventeen Takara heard an interesting thing. Apparently it's already been a while since the borders between the Jade Imperium and Sun Empire had opened and that reminded her of all the stories her mother had told and how much she had wanted to live there. It was about time she visited the land. It took her another year until she worked up the money and needs to make this huge change in her life, but she did succeed in the end. She found her way to Noir Vale and while she stood out like a sore thumb, she felt right at home.

A year or so after, Takara found her way to Radiant Harbour and there met Tairan and, by extension reconnected with a branch of her family she only knew from her mother’s stories. She was very excited to meet her aunt and loved spending time in her home, which more than made up for the effort needed to deal with Tairan and his annoying ways. However their disagreements grew in size and frequency till once the words Tairan blurted out left her blood boiling with an urge to kill him. Instead she took away her mother’s necklace and hasn’t been to Radiant Harbour since.