Malbek Cahor

"Err...can't we talk this out?" Xero Drecaro is an original character created by Aldrasos.

Appearance
Xero is a middle-height, healthy young male kangaroo faunus with hazel eyes and jet-black hair. His hair is naturally a chesnut colour, but is dyed black and styled in an emo-fashion. His face is fairly sharp and handsome, but has a mildly childish look.

He wears a short, dark grey fur waistcoat open down the middle over a thin black sleeveless shirt and light grey waist sash with black jeans. He also wears heavily armoured black boots plated with a tough silver-shined metal.

Over his forearms he wears two ammo belts lined with black needle-like spikes which he uses for his Spikejacket. He additionally has a habit of wearing simple jewelry, namely replicas of Grimm teeth and bones.

Personality
Despite his appearance, Xero is a loud, talkative and cheerful guy who is easy to get along with. He comes across as silly and sociable, but also annoying to those who prefer peace and quiet. His talkativeness is born from his great negociating skills, with which he can barter, persuade and haggle with great effect and ease to most people.

While he is quite a busy guy, Xero values peace above all else, as he takes great pleasure from watching people get along and sort out their differences without violence, and simply with words. As a result, he is the obvious peacemaker in volatile situations, and can often make even the most bitter of opponents enter a temporary, reluctant truce. It is his love for peace that motivates him to become a Hunter, but at the same time causes him to struggle with fighting others. While he has no problems fighting Grimm, which he considers to be monsters that need to be eradicated, he finds it difficult to take up arms against living opponents, avoiding combat whenever possible with a simple statement along the lines of 'I didn't sign up for this'. He can be forced into fighting, especially by his teachers, but he has a tendancy to hold back, even though he knows he will not cause any serious harm. He will usually mutter 'apologies' under his breath every time he hurts another person.

Xero also has a distinct love for flowers - roses in particular - and will get sidetracked when he sees some that interest him. This ties in with his disliking of hurting other people, as he will often lay a single rose on his unconscious opponents. Whether this is out of regret or as a simple calling-card is unclear, and it is currently unknown where exactly he carries his seemingly endless supply of the flower.

Background
Xero was born and raised in the kingdom of Vacuo by his mother and father. He was an only child, but despite having their full attention when they were at home, their low wages meant that he rarely saw them away from work. His father was a mechanic, and his mother worked in a market, but he took interest in neither profession. Instead, he spent his time playing sports and exercising. He became fairly well known in his town as a great athelete, especially at those including jumping due to his abnormal muscle strength. He was initially focused on becoming a full-time athlete, in the hopes of making enough money to support his parents as well as himself, so that they would never have to work again.

However, a major Grimm attack on the town threatened his dream when he was 12. Out of loyalty to his town, Xero foolishly decided to take part in the defense, slipping past the guards and coming face-to-face with a Beowulf. Xero quickly realised his mistake, but was forced to defend himself at the last moment. He managed to stun the creature with a kick to the head, and quickly bolted to the safety of the Huntsmen.

The encounter enlightened Xero to the true dangers of the world, and he came to the conclusion that his place didn't belong as an athlete, but as a Hunter, where he could properly protect those he cared about. When order had been restored to the city, Xero began training as a Hunter at the closest Academy, initially designing his favourite weapons, the Switchblade Boots. After graduating from the Academy at 17, Xero considered either training at Shade or Beacon Academy, eventually deciding on the latter due to the better opportunities he believe lay in Vale. Before transferring, Xero designed a new weapon, the Spikejacket, which he uses at range.

He is not currently in a team.

Switchblade Boots
While not transforming, the Switchblade Boots are Xero's primary weapons, and are solely for close combat. The boots are simple in design - a black leather base with silver-coloured metal plates armouring them. At the heel of each boot is an opening for a small cartridge of Gravity Dust. When mid-kick, Xero can trigger the activation of this Dust, causing the boot to increase in velocity and move faster towards the ground due to an increase in the force of gravity acting on it, giving more force to the blow.

The boots have their name due to a small mechanism on the sole of the boot, which is triggered by a sensor which detects how fast the boot is moving. When mid-kick, the boot is travelling at its fastest, and the sensor will trigger a six-inch blade to flick out, facing downwards. This provides piercing power for the strike, allowing Xero to puncture armour and bash his opponents with the sheer force of the kick. When the boot slows, the blade retracts, preventing it from messing with his footing.

Spikejacket
Spikejacket is a relatively small silver handgun which fires black needle-like spikes at a high rate of fire, but at fairly low speeds. While the spikes do not travel as fast as bullets, they benefit from increased armour piercing damage, and 1 in every 5 spikes fired is tipped with Fire Dust. If the opponent is hit with enough spikes, the combined explosion can cause serious damage. The weapon is designed to combat heavily armoured and slow moving targets. The weapon is belt-fed, with the ammunition being wrapped around each of Xero's forearms for ease of firing.

Spikejacket's second form is similar to its first, except the 'barrel' extends and rotates, allowing for improved accuracy and range for firing at greater distances. The rate of fire is slower, but four spikes are fired with each pull of the trigger, creating a small spraying affect. The distance at which the spikes spread apart can be altered by a setting on the side of the rifle.

Spikejacket does not have a close combat form. Instead, it has a crutch form for when Xero is retreating from combat, due to his fighting style often resulting in him badly hurting his legs and making it difficult to walk. This is possible by the barrel of the weapon extending and widening further, before extending outwards until it is long enough to be used effectively. When not being used, the handgun detatches itself from the ammo belt and hooks onto his belt.

Spikejacket gets its name from how it makes its victims look after being riddled by a few bursts.

Force Redirection
Xero's ability is to reverse the direction of force entering his body as a result of him performing an action, for instance, a kick. In combat, Xero can usually kick and opponent with enough force to make them stumble backwards. However, the force he recieves is equal to that of the force he exerted, which can jar his leg. Xero's ability is to redirect this force (but only this force) back into the kick, effectively doubling his kick strength. The same can be applied for a punch, but this does not suit his fighting style.

However, there is a major drawback to using this. This second exertion has the same effect on Xero, doubling the amount of force returning to his leg, causing his leg to jar even more. Xero could, in theory, repeat the use of his Semblance and quadrouple the force of his initial kick, but his leg would most likely snap in two as a result. Using the Semblance once is enough to cause serious discomfort.

Xero can use the Semblance several times in a prolonged fight, as adrenaline will, for the most part, allow him to ignore the pain due to the Semblance ignoring most of his Aura (but not his opponents), since the force is being applied directly to his leg. However, afterwards Xero will find it difficult to walk on the leg that he used, requiring the use of his crutch. Xero could use his Semblance up to 20 times before collapsing from fatigue, but the resulting pain from each use will prevent him from using it that many times.

Natural Abilities
Xero's kangaroo feature is located in his legs. While not visible from the outside, the muscle tendons in Xero's legs are more elastic and powerful than those of a human, allowing him to leap roughly twice as high and far as a normal human athlete, and to kick with even greater strength.

Even without his natural advantages, rigerous track exercises have given Xero amazing leg strength and impressive stamina. He is a natural diplomat, being very persuasive and wise when it comes to negociations, and this is reflected in his ability to get along with anyone who is willing to hear him out. He has an average intelligence, and knows when to take risks and when not two, which ties in with his fighting style.

Fighting Style
Xero's strength lies solely on his kicks. While Spikejacket is a powerful weapon, it can be fairly easily outgunned and overwhelmed by weapons which fire bullets and a high rate. Xero will aim to get as close to his opponent as possible, and simply beat them down with his powerful strikes. His kicks are primarily roundhouse, side and axe kicks, but will occasionally experiment with more complicated ones, such as the butterfly, mule and hook kicks to vary his technique and build up his arsenal. He will make use of Spikejacket's high rate of fire by unleashing a volley of spikes at a stunned target, and hopefully hit with enough of them to knock them out. For most opponents, a full-on kick to the torso will knock them over fairly easily, but this is dependant on numerous factors.

Xero must be very cautious in combat, however, and is usually a trump card in a group fight. His Semblance is high-risk, high-reward, but in his case the consequences are unavoidable. His physical strength, Semblance and gravity-enhanced boots combined make a terrifying attack which requires a lot of courage to make.

Also, his ambidextrous ability allows him to fire Spikejacket perfectly fine with either hand, making the most of the limited ammunition available to him.

Weaknesses and Disadvantages
Xero's main weakness is his own strength. He cannot use his Semblance to empower his kicks without hurting himself, and the recovery time for a full-blown fight can be very long, especially against other Semblance users. Against said types of opponents, the fight will usually boil down to whether Xero can stand the pain long enough to defeat his opponent, or if they simply defeat him first.

As for his natural abilities, apart from his superior leg strength he is nothing special. Despite being a good negociator, he is not team-leader material in a charismatic kind of way. He's not an idiot, but he is not abnormally intelligent either.

Finally, Xero often struggles to fight non-Grimm opponents, as he believes that they should be fighting the creatures rather than each other, even for practise purposes. This prevents him from going all-out in a fight, which means he will often struggle to defeat similarly-skilled opponents, unless he feels that his or another person's life is at stake.

Trivia

 * Xero is pronounced 'Zero' in English. While the word 'Zero' does not mean a colour, the number zero is a defining piece of information which creates a colour. On a digital colour palette, a colour with a hue, saturation and value set at zero, and with the essential colours of red, blue and green set at zero, the resulting colour is black. Additionally, HTML notation, or hexadecimal colour notation, at a value of 000000 (literally nothing) is black.
 * The Switchblade boots were the result of my interest in Gravity Dust
 * Spikejacket is partially inspired by the Needler
 * It is to be noted that I am new to creating Faunus, so I'm not entirely sure if an internal feature is allowed