Auric Miralles

"Oooh! Down goes another competitor! Surely there are others wanting to win the grand prize?!" Auric Miralles, AKA his stagename, 'Jolly Jack', is an original character created by Aldrasos.

Appearance
Jack is a average-height, thin male faunus in his early thirties from Menagerie. His skin is a light, sandy colour, and his hair and eyes are both a bright golden yellow. He usually wears his Ringmaster attire, which consists of navy-coloured slacks and short waistcoat, over a long-sleeved white dress shirt. His shoes are a smart black and are polished to a shine, and he typically wears spotless white silk gloves. On his head he wears a large black tophat with red ribbon, which is his second most distinctive feature behind a porcelain half-mask on the right side of his face. The mask is designed to be reminiscent of a smiling theatrical drama mask, with the features usually being painted on with a dark blue. However, during his private events Jack will replace it for one with red features, along with a bleeding eye and a jagged smile.

Personality
Jack's onstage personality is very different from his real one. When in the public eye Jack is cheerful, warm and humorous, always working to keep his audience entertained and his fighters motivated, but in reality this is nothing more than a facade. The real Jack is cruel - if not borderline sadistic - with a specific hatred for other faunus. He cares little for people's lives, unless they are a particular crowd-drawer, in which case he will pretend to favour and support them until they are no longer of any use to him. While he enjoys the comforts of a wealthy lifestyle, Jack is primarily motivated by a lust for power and control as a result of his painful childhood. He achieves this through coercion and bullying, often with promises of fame and money, or with outright threats.

Jack's only real hobby outside of his job is performing on-the-spot magic tricks, which he utilised in his early life.

Background
Jack was born with the name Auric Miralles in Menagerie, and like many of those around him his family was poor and vulnerable on the cramped and dangerous island. He lived a fairly normal life in his early years - besides struggling in school - until he was twelve years old. Jack had always been physically weak as a result of genetics and sickness, and in the rough neighborhood he lived in this made him an easy target for bullies. It started out as a mere nuisance, but as time passed the abuse became worse and worse and, not wanting to worry his parents, Jack suffered in silence for several years. When Jack was sixteen he finally snapped, striking back at the biggest bully with all his strength. This only angered the boy, however, who incapacitated Jack with a single slash of his claws, leaving the right side of his face torn and ruined due to Jack's weak aura.

Hiding his shameful scars behind a porcelain mask, Jack left Menagerie a few months later in an attempt to put his traumatic childhood behind him. He joined a travelling carnival group, using his hobby as a magician to gain moderate popularity amongst the troop's fanbase. Over a three-year period he travelled all across Remnant, until one day the troop returned to Menagerie. Distracted by the crowd of rowdy faunus, Jack botched an important trick in front of a large audience and embarrassed both himself and his friends, leading to his eventual firing.

Jack's distaste of other faunus - which had been burning since his difficult upbringing - flared up following this interpreted betrayal, causing an altercation between Jack and one of his old bullies, resulting in his bully's accidental death. Alarmed and fearful, Jack fled the island for Mistral, where he came into contact with the owner of an underground fighting ring within the heat of the capital. Watching some of the fights Jack saw an opportunity for success and revenge, and promptly bought the organisation from its owner. Jack then marketed the fighting club as a public attraction, offering a wide array of fights from professional huntsman-level duels to auraless fistfights to his audience while using the stagename 'Jolly Jack' as the resident announcer. After a successful launch Jack expanded the organisation to even have a pay-per-view format for distant viewers. Soon 'Jolly Jack's Combat Arena' was a worldwide hit for combat enthusiasts.

However, not all of Jack's fights were marketed to the public. In several secret underground arenas, Jack hosted illegal, unregulated fights and tournaments for his wealthier and more bloodthirsty clients. In exchange for safety and shelter Jack misled fighters around Remnant into competing - primarily manipulating desperate faunus from Menagerie into becoming his core fighters. Many of these fights pushed their combatants to the brink of death, and sometimes beyond.