Name: Goggs Contact Information:GoggleDragon or PM this journal Time Zone: EST Characters Played: None
CHARACTER INFO
Character Name: Apollo Character Canon: Genesis of Aquarion OVA
History:Wiki link. Only the OVA section applies here.
AU History: Apollo was born with his Child of the Verdant Forest ability active; he may even have had it while in the womb. It took a while for those around him to understand what was going on, why he would suddenly laugh or cry for no apparent reason, and why Pokémon walking past would frequently stop and watch him with heads tilted as if trying to understand him. His parents (who weren't Enlightened themselves) sadly did not get to see how he would use his gift, as they both died in an accident when he was two. Apollo was put into the care of his only living relative, his maternal grandfather, a Ranger. This was by no means ideal, considering how often his grandfather needed to be away from the city, but his grandfather made it work as best he could. The two of them quickly became quite close, his grandfather spending as much time as possible with him and teaching Apollo everything he could about Pokémon and the wilderness outside the city. Combined with Apollo's ability to communicate with Pokémon and thus learn from them as well, his knowledge and love of the natural world grew exceptionally fast, as did his desire to see it firsthand. Several instances of him stealthily following his grandfather out of the city followed, and despite the discomfort of most of the Rangers his grandfather started bringing him along on "safer" missions, recognizing that Apollo handled himself well and frankly not caring that much about other people's opinions on how he should be raising his grandson. Apollo's schooling has naturally suffered from all this. Lately however his grandfather's age has been beginning to catch up with him, and they're both facing the knowledge that Grandpa won't be able to continue being a Ranger forever. Apollo's begun to head out of the city on his own lately, and while a 13-year-old running around the wilderness on his own makes many people rather uncomfortable, no one who's spent time with him beyond the city walls can deny his competence, and they fully expect that he'll be able to suceed his grandfather with ease. They'd just prefer that he waited until he was a bit older, or that his grandfather wouldn't be quite so okay with it.
Canon Personality: Most of Apollo's views on life stem from something his grandfather always told him: "Be it grass, fruit, or beasts, whatever you eat, you have to live its part. Don't waste a thing." Apollo has made this concept one of the cornerstones of his life. He considers all the animals in the forest, even the insects, his friends, but he knows that he'll be forced to kill many of them so he can survive, and he accepts that, keeping their skulls on the hill around his grandfather's grave to help him remember each of them and how they died. He considers all of the animals he eats to live on inside him and respects their sacrifice, making a prayer-like gesture that he says makes him feel like he can live for his prey before he eats, clasping his hands together and bowing his head for a few moments. Unknown to him, this is a latent memory of his past life, where the right hand represents the life being taken and the left hand represents his own life, the two hands coming together in the shape of a human heart. Even though he kills his animal friends to survive, he hates seeing them scared or suffering, and if he comes across an animal who's injured beyond what he can treat, he'll kill it himself to end its pain.
Anyone who mistreats nature and doesn't respect it like he does - in his experience prior to meeting Silvia and Reika, all humans other than himself and his grandfather - is hated by him. The wish that his grandfather left him when he died was for Apollo to protect the forest, and this wish is the other cornerstone of his life. He tries his best to fulfill that wish, even killing animals that are unbalancing the ecosystem, such as a deer that ate so much that he was worried it would strip the mountain if he left it alone. The biggest threats to the forest though are humans, which he's not nearly as successful at dealing with, since all he has is a hunting knife and poachers are coming with guns, or giant robots are crushing the forest as they fight. Being helpless in the face of a threat to the forest or his friends is something that he finds extremely distressing, and a large-scale threat that he can't do anything about, such as a forest fire, will cause him to panic completely. Apollo's focus on protecting the forest blinds him to the realities of the rest of the world, and part of his development over his canon involves him realizing that he needs to help protect the entire Earth, not just the one tiny patch of it that is his forest. Part of his poor opinion of humans is from negative experiences with them, but part is also from a mistaken assumption on his part; he assumes that all humans are like him and can communicate with plants and animals, meaning they must understand the suffering they're causing and so their destruction of nature is malicious. He's genuinely surprised when he learns that this isn't the case, but immediately understands that that's why they can harm nature so easily. This also leads into another trait of his, that once he realizes that someone doesn't understand something, even if he doesn't like them he'll still explain the truth to them.
In general, Apollo is fairly calm unless you insult him or try to hurt him or someone or something he cares about. Being around humans will also put him in a bad mood, though that will eventually change once he knows them. He enjoys talking about his animal friends with people who will listen, and he's perfectly capable of making jokes, though it's not necessarily clear that he's joking, such as when he feeds his prisoners and says it's a good idea to fatten up your prey before you eat them, only to be offended when they take him seriously. Most of the time he's quite honest and open, the most notable exception being his failed attempt to deny his fear of needles. If he cares about someone, he'll instinctively rush to help them without thinking of his own safety, limitations, or other people's opinions, which can upset others or get him in over his head if he's not stopped. He behaved this way even in the face of a situation as completely beyond him as a forest fire, where he had to be held back from rushing in to try and save the animals.
Beyond protecting the forest he has no real long-term goals, so he kind of drifts through life and lives day-to-day rather than striving towards anything in particular. He'd have been perfectly content with dividing his time between hunting, swimming, and just spending time in the forest until the day he died if the plot hadn't come in and jolted him out of his normal life. Even the idea of dying doesn't seem to scare him, though he would probably prefer to become food for some predator that beat him in a fight than die by a poacher's gun. He isn't particularly introspective and doesn't have much interest in why things happen, only that they do; when asked about the ruins in the lake, he responded that his grandfather had said that they were an important place once, but now they were just a good place for fish, and he doesn't seem to see why Silvia and Reika are so focused on which people made them. He doesn't seem to have much experience with long-term planning in general, as him taking Silvia and Reika prisoner doesn't seem to be done with any great purpose in mind and he isn't even upset when they escape, though that could be because he knows they won't be able to leave the forest without him to guide them.
Despite his minimal contact with other humans he displays no difficulties in holding conversations with them, presumably because his grandfather spoke with him a lot. As long as he's not getting worked up about anything, his body language is fairly subdued. His gestures become wider and more violent when he's angry or desperate, but otherwise even something like him nodding his head isn't likely to be noticed, if it happens at all. What he does have trouble with (though he sees little that's problematic about it) is social customs and knowledge of civilization, failing to understand Silvia and Reika's reactions to him coming out of the lake completely naked and inviting them to join him.
AU Deviation: Since Apollo hasn't been living alone in the wilderness his opinions and knowledge of humans have changed. He places humans and Pokémon on equal footing, though he finds humans mildly irritating at times due to their tendency to not say what they mean; being able to essentially read the minds of Pokémon has set a high standard for honesty. He does prefer the wilderness to the city, but that's because he feels a stronger connection to nature there, not because he has a burning hatred for civilization. While he's now aware of social customs, he doesn't see the point in all of them; he was exposed to the Pokémon viewpoint of human behavior through his power before he had the human viewpoint explained to him, and as such he internalized many of the Pokémon views first, such as the strangeness of humans wearing so much clothing in hot weather and their apparent obsession with keeping their feet covered. He knows that he needs to follow the rules of society while he's with other people in the city, but once he's on his own or in the wilderness he'll follow his own instincts, beginning with going barefoot so that he can feel the ground and keep more precise control of him balance and movements. Since his grandfather is still alive the dying wish to protect the forest is gone, replaced by the internalization of his grandfather's goals as a Ranger: to protect the city and ensure that humans and Pokémon live in harmony. This also gives him a goal in life, something that he didn't initially have in canon. He knows that not everyone can communicate with Pokémon, but it's so natural to him that he occasionally forgets and does things like suggest to someone that they talk to a particular Pidgey for directions. Despite the greater intelligence of Pokémon compared to Earth animals, Apollo still has the same opinions about eating them, and will still not waste their lives.
Canon Abilities: In the realm of mundane abilities, Apollo is fast, agile, strong enough to stop a charging boar (albeit a mortally wounded one), and exceptionally athletic. He could essentially be considered to function at the peak of physical fitness for a 13-year-old boy, unsurprising considering the life he leads. He's extremely stealthy and an excellent hunter and stalker, hunting with a large knife instead of any kind of ranged weapon. His wilderness survival skills and situational awareness are also excellent, again unsurprising considering the life he leads. His sense of smell is excellent as well, to the point that he can tell the difference between grass and flowers on the wind, but this also makes being around civilization uncomfortable for him because of all the chemical smells.
In the realm of the supernatural, he has the ability to communicate with plants and animals. The details of this are never properly explained, but the fact that he listens to stories from a particular tree indicates that this ability is well beyond just understanding the cries of animals. He proved able to summon the Vector Machines from the ruins that they had been hidden in and control Vector Sol without being in the cockpit. Once he entered the cockpit and began to awaken he demonstrated the ability to use telekinesis, putting out a forest fire by throwing a lake on it. When he fully awakened he materialized wings and powered-up Aquarion by drawing on the energy within the Earth. It's implied that his true ability is to channel the power of the Earth itself and through that to create any effect that he wants, but this isn't elaborated on and after that point it becomes unclear which of the later supernatural occurrences are caused by Apollo and which are caused by other sources.
Apollo is also one of the pilots of Mechanical Angel Aquarion, a giant robot formed by combining the three fighter jet-like Vector Machines, Vector Sol, Vector Luna, and Vector Mars. The three Vector Machines can be combined in three different ways, resulting in three different forms that Aquarion can take, each of which is named after whichever Vector Machine is used as Aquarion's head: Solar Aquarion, Aquarion Luna, and Aquarion Mars. All versions of Aquarion amplify the pilots' abilities and senses to absurd levels; the first time that it's activated, it allows its pilots to hear the footsteps of ants, then shows them the entire planet and all human suffering. As Apollo exclusively pilots Vector Sol, only Solar Aquarion's abilities will be discussed further. Solar Aquarion is capable of materializing a flaming sword, but its most memorable ability, triggered by Apollo, is the Mugen Punch (Infinity Punch), which extends Aquarion's arm to punch the enemy no matter where it tries to run. The Mugen Punch can literally punch an enemy into the surface of the moon, leaving little reason to doubt that its range is indeed infinite. When Apollo fully awakens, Aquarion materializes the Wings of the Sun and becomes able to create a god, freeze the entire Earth, restart the planet's life processes, and cause changes in parallel universes. As the series name implies, Aquarion's true ability is to begin the world, regardless of whether or not it is already in a functional state.
Enlightened Abilities: Fire/Flying, Child of the Verdant Forest
Apollo will begin with his mundane abilities as well as the abilities he displays early in canon converted to equivalent Pokémon moves, such as Acrobatics, Agility, and Quick Attack to emphasize his speed and agility, as well as moves that are thematically fitting, such as Natural Gift to represent his connection with nature. Prior to evolving he will learn more of the same, and his ability to communicate with plants and animals will be mostly covered by his Child of the Verdant Forest abilities. At this point his amber eyes and slightly higher than normal body temperature will be the only Enlightened physical traits that he will display.
His first evolution will move him into the abilities he displayed after he first summoned Aquarion, as well as Aquarion's initial powers, again converted to equivalent Pokémon moves, such as Telekinesis, Surf, Fly, Sacred Sword, and Sky Uppercut. At this point, when he gets angry his eyes will flash red and a weak aura of flames will appear around him, but the flames will not damage the natural environment or people and objects he's touching unless he wants them to. This could effectively be considered the Flame Body ability with an on/off switch.
His second evolution will move him into the powers and events shown after he and Aquarion fully awakened, converted to equivalent Pokémon moves to limit their game-breaking nature, such as Sunny Day, Earth Power, Cosmic Power, Land's Wrath, Oblivion Wing, Freeze-Dry, Sheer Cold, and Heal Pulse. At this point his eyes will glow red when he's feeling intense emotion and the aura of flames becomes a pair of angelic wings made of contained fire that appear whenever he uses Fly or feels intense emotion.
Apollo | Genesis of Aquarion OVA | Not Reserved
Name: Goggs
Contact Information:
Time Zone: EST
Characters Played: None
CHARACTER INFO
Character Name: Apollo
Character Canon: Genesis of Aquarion OVA
History: Wiki link. Only the OVA section applies here.
AU History: Apollo was born with his Child of the Verdant Forest ability active; he may even have had it while in the womb. It took a while for those around him to understand what was going on, why he would suddenly laugh or cry for no apparent reason, and why Pokémon walking past would frequently stop and watch him with heads tilted as if trying to understand him. His parents (who weren't Enlightened themselves) sadly did not get to see how he would use his gift, as they both died in an accident when he was two. Apollo was put into the care of his only living relative, his maternal grandfather, a Ranger. This was by no means ideal, considering how often his grandfather needed to be away from the city, but his grandfather made it work as best he could. The two of them quickly became quite close, his grandfather spending as much time as possible with him and teaching Apollo everything he could about Pokémon and the wilderness outside the city. Combined with Apollo's ability to communicate with Pokémon and thus learn from them as well, his knowledge and love of the natural world grew exceptionally fast, as did his desire to see it firsthand. Several instances of him stealthily following his grandfather out of the city followed, and despite the discomfort of most of the Rangers his grandfather started bringing him along on "safer" missions, recognizing that Apollo handled himself well and frankly not caring that much about other people's opinions on how he should be raising his grandson. Apollo's schooling has naturally suffered from all this. Lately however his grandfather's age has been beginning to catch up with him, and they're both facing the knowledge that Grandpa won't be able to continue being a Ranger forever. Apollo's begun to head out of the city on his own lately, and while a 13-year-old running around the wilderness on his own makes many people rather uncomfortable, no one who's spent time with him beyond the city walls can deny his competence, and they fully expect that he'll be able to suceed his grandfather with ease. They'd just prefer that he waited until he was a bit older, or that his grandfather wouldn't be quite so okay with it.
Canon Personality: Most of Apollo's views on life stem from something his grandfather always told him: "Be it grass, fruit, or beasts, whatever you eat, you have to live its part. Don't waste a thing." Apollo has made this concept one of the cornerstones of his life. He considers all the animals in the forest, even the insects, his friends, but he knows that he'll be forced to kill many of them so he can survive, and he accepts that, keeping their skulls on the hill around his grandfather's grave to help him remember each of them and how they died. He considers all of the animals he eats to live on inside him and respects their sacrifice, making a prayer-like gesture that he says makes him feel like he can live for his prey before he eats, clasping his hands together and bowing his head for a few moments. Unknown to him, this is a latent memory of his past life, where the right hand represents the life being taken and the left hand represents his own life, the two hands coming together in the shape of a human heart. Even though he kills his animal friends to survive, he hates seeing them scared or suffering, and if he comes across an animal who's injured beyond what he can treat, he'll kill it himself to end its pain.
Anyone who mistreats nature and doesn't respect it like he does - in his experience prior to meeting Silvia and Reika, all humans other than himself and his grandfather - is hated by him. The wish that his grandfather left him when he died was for Apollo to protect the forest, and this wish is the other cornerstone of his life. He tries his best to fulfill that wish, even killing animals that are unbalancing the ecosystem, such as a deer that ate so much that he was worried it would strip the mountain if he left it alone. The biggest threats to the forest though are humans, which he's not nearly as successful at dealing with, since all he has is a hunting knife and poachers are coming with guns, or giant robots are crushing the forest as they fight. Being helpless in the face of a threat to the forest or his friends is something that he finds extremely distressing, and a large-scale threat that he can't do anything about, such as a forest fire, will cause him to panic completely. Apollo's focus on protecting the forest blinds him to the realities of the rest of the world, and part of his development over his canon involves him realizing that he needs to help protect the entire Earth, not just the one tiny patch of it that is his forest. Part of his poor opinion of humans is from negative experiences with them, but part is also from a mistaken assumption on his part; he assumes that all humans are like him and can communicate with plants and animals, meaning they must understand the suffering they're causing and so their destruction of nature is malicious. He's genuinely surprised when he learns that this isn't the case, but immediately understands that that's why they can harm nature so easily. This also leads into another trait of his, that once he realizes that someone doesn't understand something, even if he doesn't like them he'll still explain the truth to them.
In general, Apollo is fairly calm unless you insult him or try to hurt him or someone or something he cares about. Being around humans will also put him in a bad mood, though that will eventually change once he knows them. He enjoys talking about his animal friends with people who will listen, and he's perfectly capable of making jokes, though it's not necessarily clear that he's joking, such as when he feeds his prisoners and says it's a good idea to fatten up your prey before you eat them, only to be offended when they take him seriously. Most of the time he's quite honest and open, the most notable exception being his failed attempt to deny his fear of needles. If he cares about someone, he'll instinctively rush to help them without thinking of his own safety, limitations, or other people's opinions, which can upset others or get him in over his head if he's not stopped. He behaved this way even in the face of a situation as completely beyond him as a forest fire, where he had to be held back from rushing in to try and save the animals.
Beyond protecting the forest he has no real long-term goals, so he kind of drifts through life and lives day-to-day rather than striving towards anything in particular. He'd have been perfectly content with dividing his time between hunting, swimming, and just spending time in the forest until the day he died if the plot hadn't come in and jolted him out of his normal life. Even the idea of dying doesn't seem to scare him, though he would probably prefer to become food for some predator that beat him in a fight than die by a poacher's gun. He isn't particularly introspective and doesn't have much interest in why things happen, only that they do; when asked about the ruins in the lake, he responded that his grandfather had said that they were an important place once, but now they were just a good place for fish, and he doesn't seem to see why Silvia and Reika are so focused on which people made them. He doesn't seem to have much experience with long-term planning in general, as him taking Silvia and Reika prisoner doesn't seem to be done with any great purpose in mind and he isn't even upset when they escape, though that could be because he knows they won't be able to leave the forest without him to guide them.
Despite his minimal contact with other humans he displays no difficulties in holding conversations with them, presumably because his grandfather spoke with him a lot. As long as he's not getting worked up about anything, his body language is fairly subdued. His gestures become wider and more violent when he's angry or desperate, but otherwise even something like him nodding his head isn't likely to be noticed, if it happens at all. What he does have trouble with (though he sees little that's problematic about it) is social customs and knowledge of civilization, failing to understand Silvia and Reika's reactions to him coming out of the lake completely naked and inviting them to join him.
AU Deviation: Since Apollo hasn't been living alone in the wilderness his opinions and knowledge of humans have changed. He places humans and Pokémon on equal footing, though he finds humans mildly irritating at times due to their tendency to not say what they mean; being able to essentially read the minds of Pokémon has set a high standard for honesty. He does prefer the wilderness to the city, but that's because he feels a stronger connection to nature there, not because he has a burning hatred for civilization. While he's now aware of social customs, he doesn't see the point in all of them; he was exposed to the Pokémon viewpoint of human behavior through his power before he had the human viewpoint explained to him, and as such he internalized many of the Pokémon views first, such as the strangeness of humans wearing so much clothing in hot weather and their apparent obsession with keeping their feet covered. He knows that he needs to follow the rules of society while he's with other people in the city, but once he's on his own or in the wilderness he'll follow his own instincts, beginning with going barefoot so that he can feel the ground and keep more precise control of him balance and movements. Since his grandfather is still alive the dying wish to protect the forest is gone, replaced by the internalization of his grandfather's goals as a Ranger: to protect the city and ensure that humans and Pokémon live in harmony. This also gives him a goal in life, something that he didn't initially have in canon. He knows that not everyone can communicate with Pokémon, but it's so natural to him that he occasionally forgets and does things like suggest to someone that they talk to a particular Pidgey for directions. Despite the greater intelligence of Pokémon compared to Earth animals, Apollo still has the same opinions about eating them, and will still not waste their lives.
Canon Abilities: In the realm of mundane abilities, Apollo is fast, agile, strong enough to stop a charging boar (albeit a mortally wounded one), and exceptionally athletic. He could essentially be considered to function at the peak of physical fitness for a 13-year-old boy, unsurprising considering the life he leads. He's extremely stealthy and an excellent hunter and stalker, hunting with a large knife instead of any kind of ranged weapon. His wilderness survival skills and situational awareness are also excellent, again unsurprising considering the life he leads. His sense of smell is excellent as well, to the point that he can tell the difference between grass and flowers on the wind, but this also makes being around civilization uncomfortable for him because of all the chemical smells.
In the realm of the supernatural, he has the ability to communicate with plants and animals. The details of this are never properly explained, but the fact that he listens to stories from a particular tree indicates that this ability is well beyond just understanding the cries of animals. He proved able to summon the Vector Machines from the ruins that they had been hidden in and control Vector Sol without being in the cockpit. Once he entered the cockpit and began to awaken he demonstrated the ability to use telekinesis, putting out a forest fire by throwing a lake on it. When he fully awakened he materialized wings and powered-up Aquarion by drawing on the energy within the Earth. It's implied that his true ability is to channel the power of the Earth itself and through that to create any effect that he wants, but this isn't elaborated on and after that point it becomes unclear which of the later supernatural occurrences are caused by Apollo and which are caused by other sources.
Apollo is also one of the pilots of Mechanical Angel Aquarion, a giant robot formed by combining the three fighter jet-like Vector Machines, Vector Sol, Vector Luna, and Vector Mars. The three Vector Machines can be combined in three different ways, resulting in three different forms that Aquarion can take, each of which is named after whichever Vector Machine is used as Aquarion's head: Solar Aquarion, Aquarion Luna, and Aquarion Mars. All versions of Aquarion amplify the pilots' abilities and senses to absurd levels; the first time that it's activated, it allows its pilots to hear the footsteps of ants, then shows them the entire planet and all human suffering. As Apollo exclusively pilots Vector Sol, only Solar Aquarion's abilities will be discussed further. Solar Aquarion is capable of materializing a flaming sword, but its most memorable ability, triggered by Apollo, is the Mugen Punch (Infinity Punch), which extends Aquarion's arm to punch the enemy no matter where it tries to run. The Mugen Punch can literally punch an enemy into the surface of the moon, leaving little reason to doubt that its range is indeed infinite. When Apollo fully awakens, Aquarion materializes the Wings of the Sun and becomes able to create a god, freeze the entire Earth, restart the planet's life processes, and cause changes in parallel universes. As the series name implies, Aquarion's true ability is to begin the world, regardless of whether or not it is already in a functional state.
Enlightened Abilities: Fire/Flying, Child of the Verdant Forest
Apollo will begin with his mundane abilities as well as the abilities he displays early in canon converted to equivalent Pokémon moves, such as Acrobatics, Agility, and Quick Attack to emphasize his speed and agility, as well as moves that are thematically fitting, such as Natural Gift to represent his connection with nature. Prior to evolving he will learn more of the same, and his ability to communicate with plants and animals will be mostly covered by his Child of the Verdant Forest abilities. At this point his amber eyes and slightly higher than normal body temperature will be the only Enlightened physical traits that he will display.
His first evolution will move him into the abilities he displayed after he first summoned Aquarion, as well as Aquarion's initial powers, again converted to equivalent Pokémon moves, such as Telekinesis, Surf, Fly, Sacred Sword, and Sky Uppercut. At this point, when he gets angry his eyes will flash red and a weak aura of flames will appear around him, but the flames will not damage the natural environment or people and objects he's touching unless he wants them to. This could effectively be considered the Flame Body ability with an on/off switch.
His second evolution will move him into the powers and events shown after he and Aquarion fully awakened, converted to equivalent Pokémon moves to limit their game-breaking nature, such as Sunny Day, Earth Power, Cosmic Power, Land's Wrath, Oblivion Wing, Freeze-Dry, Sheer Cold, and Heal Pulse. At this point his eyes will glow red when he's feeling intense emotion and the aura of flames becomes a pair of angelic wings made of contained fire that appear whenever he uses Fly or feels intense emotion.
Starter Pokémon: Fletchling