temptestament

High-tech heavy crossbow (Draws energy from the user for ammo.)
Connection Gear (Hand held computer with holographic screen, networking capabilities disabled.)

Player Information

Name: Jess
Personal LJ: draconic_scribe
Age: 21
Contact Info: AIM/Plurk: Firebenderjess
Other Characters Played: N/A

Character Information

Character Name: Allen Ridgeley
Character Series: Xenosaga
Character Age: 25 (Died at 22)
Character Gender: Male
Alternate Universe
Canon Point: Before Shion summons Abel's Ark
Background Link: General canon and Allen specifically
AU Background: This Allen's early life went more or less exactly as canon: he was the son of a wealthy CEO, decided to follow his own path instead of the family business to go to technical school, graduated from Bormeo with top grades, was hired by Vector Industries straight out of college and quickly fell in love with the Jr. Chief of his Division, only to find out she was engaged to the Chief. It wasn't until a year after he joined Vector that his history deviated in any tangible way from canon.

On that day, a large group of U-TIC soldiers invaded the lab where Allen was working and activated the KOS-MOS Archetype, which went berserk. In most versions of this event, Allen was not present, instead attending a business meeting, and Kevin Winnicot was murdered by the Archetype. This time, however, the meeting was delayed and Allen, seeing the Archetype targeting his beloved's fiance, grabbed a fallen soldier's gun and started firing on the berserk android. He was successful in drawing her attention away from Kevin, but was no more a match himself than Kevin would have been. The Archetype killed him, ramming her hand straight through his chest, but was destroyed before she could return to finish Kevin.

In most cases, death would be the end of the story. However, Allen in all incarnations has a rare potential that, in most versions of events, goes unrealized. This time, it did not. Upon Allen's death, the CEO of Vector and Guardian of the Lower Domain, Wilhelm, approached his not yet dissipated consciousness and made him an offer: a return to some semblance of life, unimaginable power and, most importantly to Allen, the opportunity to keep Shion safe in exchange for his aid in bringing about the Eternal Recurrence, rescuing the universe from the looming threat of dissipation by reversing time and bringing the universe back to a point as close to its very beginning as was possible, and a promise that he would only reveal his identity to those who knew him to be dead until the appropriate time. Allen agreed and was thus reborn as a Testament, a being of pure consciousness that could still interact with the living and, in fact, wielded a great amount of power over physical space and the perceptions of mortals. Along with this pact came knowledge that the offer had been meant for Kevin, who had arranged the incident to bring about his own death.

Skip three years later, time mostly spent overseeing the movement of Wilhelm's pawns, and Allen is given a new project: T-Elos. Created from the body of Mary Magdeline, she was to replace KOS-MOS as the vessel of Mary's consciousness. As the director of the T-Elos project, Allen assumed the alias of Justin Partridge, a secretive engineer working for Vector. T-Elos outperformed KOS-MOS in every way, as in canon, and this time “Justin” brought the news of KOS-MOS being scrapped to Kevin. The next day, he would be on a re-creation of Old Miltia, waiting for Shion to discover what she needed to, when everything went down the drain.
Personality: Very little has actually changed about Allen due to becoming a Testament, so let's start with his base personality. Allen is, at his core, a kind man, if somewhat withdrawn, occasionally offensive and unusually secretive about his background. In his element, he's calm, collected and in charge, capable of taking even complete disasters mostly in stride and quickly deciding on what needs to be done. He seems confident in his abilities, but not arrogant. If anything, he tends to understate the significance of what he does despite being capable of extraordinary displays of observation, intelligence and quick thinking, in addition to being able to make difficult decisions or handle tragedies that would stop many civilians cold.

Out of his element, Allen seems to become an entirely different person. He becomes easily agitated, nervous, and overly cautious to the point of borderline paranoia. When things go wrong in a situation he doesn't understand or feels helpless in, his first instinct becomes panicking rather than working out a solution, leading to an impression of cowardice. Even when things are relatively safe, he will frequently complain and object to the insane situation or stupid risks people around him are taking.

Allen's most admirable traits are his loyalty and willingness to go through anything for his friends. Unfortunately, this is also something of a weakness, as he is almost literally unable to say no to helping them, even when it puts him in direct danger. He has been described as willing to go to hell and back for his friends, and indeed he would, complaining all the way but not turning back until everyone he knew was safe.

However, while Allen is mostly the same as his canon counterpart, spending three years as a Testament has changed him somewhat. The most noticeable difference is that he's braver and less prone to spazzing out. Where it used to be easy to pull him out of his element with some unusual circumstances, he's now used to the downright impossible seeming and working with the other Testaments has required him to develop the ability to talk to some of the most terrifying people in the universe without faltering. Aside from that, he is, simply put, more willing to make sacrifices for the greater good. While he would still prefer to keep damage to others to a minimum, given a choice between helping someone who might kill hundreds and standing by while thousands died instead, he would steel himself and risk the hundreds. He doesn't consider it an easy choice, but does understand that the alternative to doing harm in one situation is sometimes downright disastrous.
Abilities: All Testaments have a standard set of powers, regardless of who or what they were in life. These powers can be broken down into two distinct sets: spacial and mental.

Testaments have, quite simply, the ability to warp space on a whim. This translates as powerful telekinesis, teleportation and the creation of wormholes and force fields. This is usually how they interact with the physical world, as they lack bodies-an aspect that essentially translates to the ability to turn intangible at will, much like traditional ghosts, and to survive in a vacuum.

They have less power over people's minds, but are capable of controlling all of a human's senses and communicating telepathically. As with their spatial warping powers, they use control of a person's senses to be visible and audible despite lacking physical bodies.

Testaments can manifest physically to be able to interact more directly with the physical world, but are in complete control of their form and can shapeshift at will.

The shapeshifting allows Testaments to have special forms for combat, usually strongly resembling Gnosis. Allen has two, depending on the situation: Testudo Ammon and Fenrisulfr.

Testudo Ammon sacrifices the bulk of his attack power for incredible defense. When attacked, its free-floating shell automatically moves to defend and soaks up the damage. If it takes too much damage in a short period, the shell will be temporarily disabled, leaving him open to attack. In this form, he is still capable of beam attacks but they're noticeably weaker.

Fenrisulfr is his attack form. Fast, agile and powerful but lacking in ways to reduce damage, Fenrisulfr resembles a hairless werewolf with glowing hedgehog spines and a bladed, prehensile tail. In this form, he is capable of firing poison spines with the force of a thrown javelin and the blade on his tail weakens the defensive abilities of those it hits.

In addition to the spacial and mental powers, Testaments display powers that ordinary living people can learn in their world, called Ethers and ranging from elemental attacks to status afflictions to healing. Allen himself is capable of healing Ethers, inflicting and curing various status effects ranging from debuffs to damage reflection, and using powerful beam attacks.

For ease of interaction in the tower, his default states will be changed to visible and tangible.

Beyond the supernatural abilities, Allen is an extremely talented engineer and programmer and a capable shot with ranged weapons.
Sample Entry: His universe was dead. How had it come to this? Wilhelm had told him that they still had time, that they could prevent this-or at least buy humanity another chance. But as Allen pressed a gloved hand to the glass separating him from the barren landscape of what was unmistakably Fifth Jerusalem, he could feel with a cold certainty that there wasn't a single living consciousness on the other side. His heart didn't beat, but that didn't stop the tight feeling in his chest as he leaned his forehead against the glass and whispered,

“I'm sorry, Ms. Uzuki. I promise I'll find out how this happened.”

He knew it wouldn't bring her back, but he couldn't do nothing. He couldn't accept that there was nothing he could do for any universe that might remain. If he couldn't have a peaceful life, it would at least be a useful one. He only hoped that it wouldn't turn out that the death of his universe had been his own fault-he wasn't intended to become a Testament, and the thought that this could have happened because of him taking Kevin's place weighed heavily on his mind.