[hider=The Kaiser Chief]
[b]Name[/b]: Nick Rix, A.K.A. "The Kaiser Chief"

[b]Age[/b]: 24

[b]Gender[/b]: Male

[b]Appearance[/b]: As a side effect of his early start in the Ripple and its age-slowing effects, Nick's appearance is a strange combination of teenage youthfulness and continued growth beyond the average size of a man his age: he is Caucasian with oddly clear skin, and is easily over 190cm tall and still growing, with a build more readily associated with a weightlifter than a martial artist and a face which just seems to be heading toward maturity, as well as messy black hair down to his shoulders and eyes of a piercing green colour. His typical clothing includes faded blue denim jeans with holes in the knees, black leather shoes, a bright- almost neon- green wifebeater with the logo for a local drink brand (ChillAde[sup]TM[/sup] - "When you need to chill out, count on ChillAde[sup]TM[/sup]!") on it, and a blue denim short-sleeve jacket, torn similarly to how his jeans are, but not so faded. Finally, a plugged black plastic tube hangs from one hip by a belt, containing a trusty bat suspended in a mass of engine oil.

[hider=Backstory]
Nick was born an only child to a mother and father who'd migrated to Angel Springs from another state and were both masters of the Ripple, and from a very young age he began practicing the martial art alongside his parents whenever he could, at first being placed into very difficult situations to draw out his Ripple potential, and then actually being trained in its use. And yet, for reasons he couldn't quite understand, his family always encouraged him to keep quiet about their capacity to utilise the Ripple, and to never use it on his fellow students even if they attacked him first. Some children might have accepted these mandates without complaint; these children would not have been worthy of the martial art, and after a while, the constant reminders not to do these things turned Nick into the sort of child who went out of his way to deliberately disobey orders given to him by others, regardless of how high their authority went.

This tended to get him in trouble a lot at school, and in spite of his parent's best efforts, his progress through the education system beyond the age of ten was consistently hampered by the fights he got into, wherein he would end up picking another student who bullied students weaker than them, only to beat the bullies to a pulp in a way that baffled teachers for how much damage was consistently dealt out without a scratch on his body. His claims of knowing "a martial art better than all the others" were generally ignored, and he seemingly meant well enough throughout any given beating, so he was simply written off as a problem case by the teaching staff at his schools, plenty of whom succeeded in manipulating him into doing what they wanted by getting him to do something completely unrelated to the task everyone else was set, thus ensuring that he would actually do a much better job at the actual task than many of his fellows.

His parents, by contrast, got more and more frustrated with how rebellious their child was on a regular basis. Though users of the Ripple must be strong of will as a prerequisite, there is only so much annoyance a human being can take before they snap, and at about the age of nineteen, Nick was kicked out of his home and told to get a job. This proved harder than anticipated - nobody really wants to hire somebody with a less-than-stellar record for violence - and he ended up on the streets for a while, primarily practicing his own skill in the Ripple, until he eventually wandered into a less reputable part of town and wound up in a street gang called the Kaisers, led by none other than some guy he'd never heard of. Same-said guy, a large and strong fellow born to German immigrants to the town, claimed his real name was Simon Baines, though to all others in the gang he was simply called "The Kaiser Chief"; he was feared not just for his size, but also for his vicious nature and harsh leadership policies, wherein if his orders were disobeyed, the one disobeying them got an arm or leg broken, with death as the penalty if all four limbs were broken at once.

Nick hated him instantly. He hated having to follow the Kaiser Chief's orders, he hated how cruel he was, and his personality was rather lacking beyond wanting to steal things and break people. Less than a week passed before Nick did something the Chief didn't like, and his arm was restrained  by other gang members in preparation for a metal bat to be brought down upon it. Naturally, the restraints were insufficient: timing it just right, Nick broke free just before the bat was brought down, caught it, sent a pulse of the Ripple through everybody next to him at that moment to knock them out, then took the bat to Simon's entire body, beating him with it until he ran with his tail between his legs. Nick promptly installed himself as the new Kaiser Chief, spending the next couple of years reforming the group (by force if needed) into a community that actually helped improve the state of the local area rather than harming it further.

This goal was marred somewhat by the return of Simon Baines a few weeks before Nick's twenty fourth birthday, during a particularly dark night. It seemed that the former Kaiser Chief had returned as some strange undead being akin to a vampire, capable of draining people's blood through his fingers; every person he drained entirely of blood returned to life as a zombie under his command, increased his capacity to kidnap and drain others, further increased the size of his undead army, and it wasn't surprising that the unpowered humans of the Kaisers couldn't fend off the ever-growing horde of superhuman monsters, leading to the death and conversion of nearly half the gang in just a few minutes. Nick, however, was nothing if not superhuman himself: his very first punch to one of the zombies completely disintegrated its skull and much of its upper body, and it was like this that he learned the true purpose of the Ripple, to slay the undead with his focused life energy as though exposing them to the Sun itself. He tore through many of his former comrades like a scythe through wheat, only momentarily halted in this regard by Simon himself. Though he was rather faster and stronger than his minions, he was no more capable of resisting the Ripple's effects, and with his death, the zombie horde's morale was broken, shortly followed by their bodies.

Since then, Nick's main goal other than continuing his gang's work has been to revive the damaged prospects of the Kaisers, many of whom see him as almost godlike for his actions that night. Alas, though he has offered to help train others in the Kaisers in the Ripple, none of the surviving or new members have so far presented any aptitude in the art, and he worries that another vampire attack could lead to the group's destruction outright; thus, part of his reformation drive involves searching out those who might be capable of utilising the Ripple so that they can be trained to help protect themselves and others from any undead which may choose to present themselves.
[/hider]

[hider=Condensed Backstory]
[list]
[*]Was trained in use of the Ripple for most of his life by his parents, who are both Ripple masters;
[*]His parents told him not to tell others that he could use the Ripple or to use it on others;
[*]He decided "screw that" and began routinely beating the crap out of bullies throughout his school life;
[*]Teachers mostly wrote off his actions since they didn't really hurt innocents, including adapting to get him to do school well academically;
[*]Parents got fed up with his rebelliousness and kicked him out of the house at 19;
[*]People didn't want to hire a guy who was known for being violent, and he ended up in a gang led by a psychopath;
[*]He quickly beat up the psychopath until they fled, took his place as gang leader, and reformed it into a group to help the community;
[*]The psychopath returned as a vampire, turned a large chunk of the gang into zombies, then got melted by the Ripple along with his army;
[*]Nick is now on the prowl for people to help return his group to its former size, as well as other protectors capable of wielding the Ripple themselves.
[/list]
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[b]Likes[/b]: Freedom, training in the Ripple, helping the community, managing the Kaisers.

[b]Dislikes[/b]: Following orders, bullies, psychopaths, murderers, the undead.

[b]Powers[/b]: Currently, Nick's only supernatural ability is his use of the Ripple, which he is by now coming close to mastering. By breathing in a particular pattern, his life energy is focused in a way that mimics the energy of the Sun, so as to increase his own physical traits and senses almost passively and thereby let him keep up with the power and speed of even strong vampires, and by focusing it just a bit more, he can imbue his attacks with this life energy to perform an immense variety of feats, ranging from temporary dislocation of joints to increase the range and flexibility of his attacks, to rapid healing of most non-lethal injuries, to knocking out living beings or vaporising the undead. In particular, the Ripple is easily channeled through mediums such as metal and oil, and Nick often prefers to utilise it in combination with the metal bat formerly reserved for breaking bones, now generally kept in a sealed cylinder of engine oil when not in use, to amplify the power of attacks made with it many-fold.

However, using the Ripple requires a pattern of constant breathing, and if this breathing pattern is stopped or weakened somehow- for instance by winding the user, severely injuring them or punching a hole in their lungs- their ability to produce Ripple energy will consequently be weakened or even outright halted. There is also the caveat that the Ripple does not let its user perceive Stands on its own, and cannot harm them without directly targeting the Stand's user; indeed, Nick has no idea Stands exist at the moment, though this does not necessarily mean he is outright incapable of ever manifesting a Stand of his own.
[/hider]