- Jun 18, 2015
- 10,109
- Gender
- Female
- Pronouns
- She/Her
- Posting Status
- Irregularly
NICOLAS THIBAULT
Thirty-Seven - September 5th - Male - Human - Civilian
APPEARANCE
Nicolas stands at 6'1", and has a muscular build. He has red hair that he keeps cut fairly short, cutting it any time it gets too close to his shoulders to his liking. He has dark brown eyes, and since shaving is a pain in the ass, so he does so sparingly. Thankfully, it takes ages for him to get much more than scruff.
His clothing is fairly casual, in large part due to his budgetary concerns. Getting a used pair of jeans that'll fit is a lot cheaper than getting custom tailored dress pants. He's almost always wearing some kind of elaborate jacket, his favorite one being a large black one. He wears them over his shoulders, keeping his arm mostly out of sight.
He also has exactly one arm - his left is missing just below the shoulder. This fact is neatly hidden by his jacket the vast majority of the time.
His clothing is fairly casual, in large part due to his budgetary concerns. Getting a used pair of jeans that'll fit is a lot cheaper than getting custom tailored dress pants. He's almost always wearing some kind of elaborate jacket, his favorite one being a large black one. He wears them over his shoulders, keeping his arm mostly out of sight.
He also has exactly one arm - his left is missing just below the shoulder. This fact is neatly hidden by his jacket the vast majority of the time.
PERSONALITY
Nicolas is not what anyone would really call nice. He's a grumpy old man, aged beyond his years by the things he's seen, and he doesn't see any problem with letting the world know just how grumpy he is. Most people make an effort to be polite, but Nicolas barely bothers. He has a poor opinion of almost everything, although he has a soft spot in his heart for the military and his brothers in arms at the french foreign legion. He has a particular hatred for the ocean, or any other significantly deep body of water. If he must, he'll go on plane rides (or ship rides if there's absolutely no alternative), but almost nothing will be enough to make him go swimming in the ocean ever again.
Money is very close to his only true motivation anymore. No military in the world will have him, and while he gets a small paycheck from the french foreign legion for his service, it's really not enough. He's extremely bad at handling his money, and it took him far too long to realize just how much debt he had. He has too much pride to beg, but for a while it did seem like begging was his only real option. While he has a new opportunity now, he's torn on if he should actually be thankful or not. He's not very good at showing his appreciation anymore, and prefers to just bury anyone he deals with in endless amounts of jaded snark.
He has nightmares frequently, and he ends up drinking whenever he can. It haunts him in a way that a proper battle never could.
Money is very close to his only true motivation anymore. No military in the world will have him, and while he gets a small paycheck from the french foreign legion for his service, it's really not enough. He's extremely bad at handling his money, and it took him far too long to realize just how much debt he had. He has too much pride to beg, but for a while it did seem like begging was his only real option. While he has a new opportunity now, he's torn on if he should actually be thankful or not. He's not very good at showing his appreciation anymore, and prefers to just bury anyone he deals with in endless amounts of jaded snark.
He has nightmares frequently, and he ends up drinking whenever he can. It haunts him in a way that a proper battle never could.
POWERS
Nicolas is a completely normal human being. He's has modern military training and experience, but there's nothing strange or supernatural about it.
BIOGRAPHY
Nicolas joined the French Foreign Legion at the tender age of twenty four. A tad old to start military service, but the legion accepted even those older than usual. He passed all the background checks, entered the corps, and then passed his basic training. He moved quickly and efficiently through the ranks, focusing on nothing else, and soon became a caporal chef. He joined the Détachement de Légion étrangère de Mayotte, which was considered to be a tad cushier than other detachments. While he saw action overseas, inevitably he ended up right back in Mayotte, ready to head along the east coast of Africa at a moment's notice. He moved up in the ranks, a career soldier who made it to sergent chef, and ended up leading his own little team around the islands, intervening when Somali pirates began to move south.
When Nicolas was 31, everything fell apart. The mission was routine enough. Pirates (or, perhaps more correctly), wannabe pirates had taken over a fishing boat, and his team had been sent out to take them down in a boat of their own. They'd done their best to negotiate (although it had gone poorly), and then they'd prepared to move in when a thing came out of the ocean.
To this day Nicolas doesn't have a real word for it. One member of his team called it a 'Kaiju', and it was as close to a term as he could get. It was a monster, so inhuman and unreal that even looking at it, no one could quite believe it. A hideous monster with too many heads, too massive to be believed. It simply surfaced, ripping through not only the pirate ship, but a good chunk of their boat as well.
At the time it was hard to react. Nicolas doesn't even remember what happened immediately after, although he was told by someone else that the ship started to pitch, missing half it's side and starting to slide underwater. One of his men launched the lifeboat, and in an act which he will either describe as an act of unimaginable bravery, or extreme stupidity (depending on how drunk he is at the time), he dove into the water to find the two missing members of his crew.
The first was easy to find - knocked into the water, lightly injured, but not seriously enough he couldn't swim. Nicolas simply had to orient him and help haul him back to the little boat as the ship began to sink under the water, the massive thing remaining just above the water, watching them as they went. He'd love to claim that he wasn't afraid, but he honestly doesn't remember. He remembers very little of the whole event. He doesn't remember his crew begging him to get in the boat and get away from the monster. He doesn't remember going back in anyway.
He does, at the very least, remembering getting the last man out, hauling his unconscious body from the ruined ship and hauling him back to the boat. And he remembers, most of all, the massive monster sinking below the waves as if it had never been there.
It took them two days to be rescued. In that time, the unconscious man did not regain consciousness, and Nicolas's arm, seriously injured in his rescue attempt, continued to get worse. They swore an oath of silence, well aware that there could be no possible explanation. No one would accept that there was a giant monster - and so they came up with a plausible enough explanation, and then that was that.
He lost his arm. It was too far gone by the time they were rescued, and while the man he'd saved regained consciousness, Nicolas's time with the legion was over. By Français par le sang versé, he was granted his French citizenship, and then sent off to join civilian life.
Civilian life did not agree with him. He longed for the legion, the only happy time in his life. He stayed away from the ocean, wary of the thing that lived in the deep. He had nightmares, and developed a drinking problem, pissing away his money on alcohol and booze. Soon it began to run out, and Nicolas rapidly began to approach rock bottom. He began looking for a job more seriously, his pride all but demanding it, but precious few people wanted to hire a bitter, angry one armed man. Money got tighter and tighter, and he was forced to look abroad for options.
He didn't want to take a boat. It was the second last thing he wanted. But the last thing he wanted was to starve to death, so practicality won out. He took a boat to Corsica to take a low paying, shitty bodyguard job, unhappy and angry at the world.
And before he could even reach Corsica, he was pulled overboard.
When Nicolas was 31, everything fell apart. The mission was routine enough. Pirates (or, perhaps more correctly), wannabe pirates had taken over a fishing boat, and his team had been sent out to take them down in a boat of their own. They'd done their best to negotiate (although it had gone poorly), and then they'd prepared to move in when a thing came out of the ocean.
To this day Nicolas doesn't have a real word for it. One member of his team called it a 'Kaiju', and it was as close to a term as he could get. It was a monster, so inhuman and unreal that even looking at it, no one could quite believe it. A hideous monster with too many heads, too massive to be believed. It simply surfaced, ripping through not only the pirate ship, but a good chunk of their boat as well.
At the time it was hard to react. Nicolas doesn't even remember what happened immediately after, although he was told by someone else that the ship started to pitch, missing half it's side and starting to slide underwater. One of his men launched the lifeboat, and in an act which he will either describe as an act of unimaginable bravery, or extreme stupidity (depending on how drunk he is at the time), he dove into the water to find the two missing members of his crew.
The first was easy to find - knocked into the water, lightly injured, but not seriously enough he couldn't swim. Nicolas simply had to orient him and help haul him back to the little boat as the ship began to sink under the water, the massive thing remaining just above the water, watching them as they went. He'd love to claim that he wasn't afraid, but he honestly doesn't remember. He remembers very little of the whole event. He doesn't remember his crew begging him to get in the boat and get away from the monster. He doesn't remember going back in anyway.
He does, at the very least, remembering getting the last man out, hauling his unconscious body from the ruined ship and hauling him back to the boat. And he remembers, most of all, the massive monster sinking below the waves as if it had never been there.
It took them two days to be rescued. In that time, the unconscious man did not regain consciousness, and Nicolas's arm, seriously injured in his rescue attempt, continued to get worse. They swore an oath of silence, well aware that there could be no possible explanation. No one would accept that there was a giant monster - and so they came up with a plausible enough explanation, and then that was that.
He lost his arm. It was too far gone by the time they were rescued, and while the man he'd saved regained consciousness, Nicolas's time with the legion was over. By Français par le sang versé, he was granted his French citizenship, and then sent off to join civilian life.
Civilian life did not agree with him. He longed for the legion, the only happy time in his life. He stayed away from the ocean, wary of the thing that lived in the deep. He had nightmares, and developed a drinking problem, pissing away his money on alcohol and booze. Soon it began to run out, and Nicolas rapidly began to approach rock bottom. He began looking for a job more seriously, his pride all but demanding it, but precious few people wanted to hire a bitter, angry one armed man. Money got tighter and tighter, and he was forced to look abroad for options.
He didn't want to take a boat. It was the second last thing he wanted. But the last thing he wanted was to starve to death, so practicality won out. He took a boat to Corsica to take a low paying, shitty bodyguard job, unhappy and angry at the world.
And before he could even reach Corsica, he was pulled overboard.
EXTRA INFO
Speaks Hungarian, French, English, Arabic, and some Shimaore.
As with most members of the French Foreign Legion, Nicolas is not his real name.
The motto of the DLEM is Pericula Ludus - My Pleasure the Danger.
As with most members of the French Foreign Legion, Nicolas is not his real name.
The motto of the DLEM is Pericula Ludus - My Pleasure the Danger.
