Kei Wentz
Age: A little over fifteen.
Appearance:
Although she likes to tell herself that having perfectly on-fleek eyeliner 100% of the time makes up for the fact that she doesn't otherwise care much about her appearance, Kei is often wrong. With her hair in a mess despite the effort she went through to get a characteristic pale green dip-dye, limp muscles and a faint hunch that speaks volumes of her time spent online, and a stubborn determination not to shave her legs at
any point- Other than on the rare occasion that she manages to get a date, Kei can actually be described as dumpy, or as a tryhard. She prefers to introduce herself as 'rocking a scrawny-chic tumblr aesthetic'. Her eyebrows are usually half-raised and one corner of her mouth twitched up in a half-smile.
Kei's transformation is fairly typical in a flaunty, over-the-top, show-off kind of way. She matches her hair with a cyan split dress, cut so generously as to be more of an elegantly extended shirt, and not quite brave enough to be backless but at least shoulder-less. A fashionably triangular wrap skirt falls down almost to her knees and allows surprisingly free movement, for which Kei has described it as a 'glorified utilitarian kilt'. High garter socks lead into similarly green ballet shoes. Kei's skirt, elbow-length gloves, and long sleeveless coat are all stark white trimmed with black; Her socks invert the pattern.
Kei's Soul Gem is a cyan green earring, and, when transformed, worn as a fine silver filigree anklet with a small green ribbon attached to flow in the wind as she runs. Her fingernail mark is a cyan green chambered spiral, like an ammonite fossil.
Concept art.Nationality: Considers herself Australian, but was born to Polish/Japanese immigrants to that country. Though Kei's parents consider this something of a homecoming, Danzig still feels a little foreign to her. At this point, when someone asks her where she's from based on her name and appearance, she just cracks her knuckles and stares. Her nationality comes complete with a deep tan, something of an accent, and a fascination with rain and snow.
Personality: For the vast majority of her upbringing, Kei Wentz was far from poverty, and the casual affluence of her environment has left obvious marks on her personality. She's a practiced user of the internet, and at that something of a meme queen, who claims that online culture helps foster her sense for abstract humour.
The safety of her past has helped her foster an ability to present an attitude of laissez-faire towards most events outside of her immediate circles, or at least a competent facade of one, as her permissiveness malfunctions when a stressful subject approaches the boundaries of what she considers personal. Kei is generally too inwardly-focused to stand up against what disturbs her. The baggage of her insecurities tend to churn and swill into hot, self-destructive frustration rather than coalesce into the will to confront others. Although she can capably vent whatever anger she bottles, Kei rarely does so around, against, or with the help of her friends, preferring to act on her own and lash out on the path of least emotional resistance, against whatever she feels she will suffer no criticism for- Witches, concrete walls, herself, her companion's abuser.
The core of several of Kei's insecurities is her lust for lasting validation, and this has made her noticeably social. She'll never turn down an offer to meet or do something together, even with only loose acquaintances. The confidence she has gained from being a Magical Girl has amplified this behaviour considerably. Her words, however, tend to be few, as she lets pass chance after chance to ask questions or say something about herself, until the exact moment at which she can make a sufficiently sassy, funny, or dark comment. This has often left her hanging out with friends for hours, following and listening closely, without saying very much of anything out loud, although her body language is rather practiced. Interestingly, Kei has also lost count of how many times she has been a third wheel because of this.
To some extent, Kei's privileged life has also allowed her to carry a lingering attitude of entitlement. Her hobby of graffiti started out early, when she noticed that certain places tended to accumulate it naturally but were always repainted anyway, not really noticing that this was only due to the damage. Although she now chooses her sites more consciously and rationalises her habit better, she still scoffs at anyone who tells her to stop. Additionally, Kei sometimes turns out to be much more rude than she or her friends expected. She's been caught in the past making cheap humour based on immigrants, the disabled, and short people. Although she's quick to back down and admit wrongdoing over poor behaviour, negative and non-responses to her dubiously refined attempts to be social chips heavily at her inability to handle criticism. Any means of pointing out Kei's flaws, in fact, tend to bring up all the more vivid recollections of her mistakes and sins of inactivity, adding fuel to her cramped bottle of internalised angst.
Afflictions: The damage Kei has accumulated during the course of her career is still, at this point, reversible.
Biography: Until barely a year before she was approached by Kyubey, Kei's life was lax, happy, and somewhat naive- Sheltered, in other words. Her parents were both employed and her elder brother had moved out, and Kei was left to simmer out her childhood in an Australian suburb.
Sufficiently clever to have developed something of an ego from parental encouragement and primary school awards by the time she was thirteen, the reality of Kei's mediocrity, both social and academic, began to emerge when she dropped into the academic 'real world' of secondary education. Kei's transition taught her that she had never actually spent the effort required to make friends, nor did she have any real achievements to show for her detachment. She floundered. She tried gimmicks and stunts that gained her little, but that little was all she had, and for the years since, the only social skill she has ever really known has been to try and be cool and unusual enough to be remembered.
Kei's relative social isolation, however, did bring her into contact with the only friend she would ever become really close to while she lived in Australia, and the only one, in the end, who would ever manage to break her sheltered naiveté. Kei fell into the arms of Katherine Viktors, with whom she shared a shut-away and quiet childhood, an intense desire to appeal to peers, and a long-lingering obsession with internet escapism. Kathy, as the name soon became, was not only similar to Kei but had forced through their shared awkwardness to become someone admirable, academically and in popularity. Kei not only idolised her but found herself rapt by the girl who seemed so similar, but saw life in a sharper, more worldly light. The admiration of her new disciple was novel to Katherine, who seemed oddly unused to positive feedback, and they soon fell exceptionally deep into one another's company.
The question remained, however: Where had Kathy lost her illusions and traded them for survivalist determination? Kei had known about domestic abuse from a kind of detached, clinical perspective. Her empathy was underdeveloped and, until Kathy, was never close enough to anyone to really appreciate how perfect her own upbringing had been. Katherine, conversely, had lived for so long behind a veil of false normalcy that the details of her own parental neglect rose to the surface in snippets and off-hand implications, and when Kei finally reached the point of awareness at which she began to pry deliberately, she had to receive the story in anecdotes and explanations that each raised darker questions than they had answered.
Her mother an unemployed trophy wife, her father a well-dressed and well-connected figure in a large, land-owning agricultural company, Katherine was intended to have been born a male and an heir. Her parents had even chosen a name, which they soon gave to her younger brother Ethan instead. Kathy had underperformed just by being born, and the weight of perfection that Jason Viktor expected from the women in his life forced her further and further down. Any appreciation that Kathy earned was piled upon Ethan.
What traits that the duo shared had been developed in environments that were polar opposites. Kei had been hospitalised for a sprained finger, told to get better; Kathy had been denied access to medication for her anxiety, told to get over it. Kei had been praised for a sticker at school, Kathy had been screamed at for scoring lower than 90%. Kei stayed indoors for her safety. Kathy was locked in alone. As her heart bled for the girl to whom Kei had attached so much love and held as the most perfect and precious person she'd ever met, the gnawing unfairness of the situation plagued her nights and left her with nothing to do but cry and fume and pack masses of blame onto Katherine's father. By the time even the fresh stories had grown familiar, that blame had blanched into the unrepentant totality of hatred, the kind only a naive child can really bring themselves to feel.
Locked up by the helplessness of a child and deeply regretting her inability to respond with the maturity that Katherine had always shown towards her, Kei felt convinced that nothing she could do about it but fruitlessly try to talk Kathy out of self-harm night after night. Jason was rich and his friends were lawyers and judges and all the other parents at their school. He was loved. He would be remembered for decades as a Good Bloke, and Kei, and Kathy, and all the suffering he spread, would be forgotten. Kei could do nothing, until Kyubey came. A yes-man with neither conscience nor criticism.
For the first time in a long while, Kei felt that she had finally done something really memorable by killing Jason. But the illusion didn't take long to break. Her fathers death threw Katherine into panic, and her mother and brother took much of the money. The depression that had been planted found other sources of water in the wake of Kei's wish, and Kathy would be worse before she had any hope of getting better. Kei crumpled under the weight of failure, and didn't say a word. Nothing of Jason's behaviour came to light, and he became a suburban martyr. A few days later, the Wentz parents announced that they were moving back to Poland. Kei wouldn't even see the aftermath of her decision when it eventually turned to the good.
The move from Australia to Danzig saw Kei losing forever not only Katherine, but her grasp over the places she had so often wandered and claimed with paint and ink. To some degree, the move at least allowed her to cut back on the memory of her mistakes and run from the crippling impermanence of what she had accomplished. Kei channelled her guilt at something more material, rationalising her insecurity in her new country as something that stemmed directly from feeling adrift, both in the topography of her new city and in her new life as a Magical Girl. Despite stern parental protests, she immediately set about to solving these problems, and in time the two activities of graffiti and witch-hunting merged into one and the same occupation for Kei. Both were forbidden, dangerous, and for a girl her age, completely reckless.
But her confidence in the one seeped into the other, and Kei's desire for permanence made itself manifest again as she strived to make a real difference in the lives of those like Katherine, where even the murder of her tormentor had wrought little change. Her frustration and extroversion pushed her in a wider and wider radius from her home, driven to learn on the edge, by trial and mistake. And learn she did.
Wish: "Let me see him, let me see Jason Viktor marked for death. I want him so etched with scars that no one will forget it, I... I want him splattered like an inkblot." Kei's wish was one made in anger, targeting the source of the hurt rather than the victim, and ultimately a very simple one. Minutes after the words were spoken, Jason drew into himself and began acting erratically, leaving his work schedule in tatters, Katherine shakily perplexed, and Kei waiting with enormous tension.
Within hours he embarked on an unscheduled inspection of a chemical plant that produced fertiliser for his company via the Haber process. That very day, the storage cylinders in the factory underwent a catastrophic depressurisation. Standardised safety practices saved most of the employees from severe injuries, but Jason was trapped in the exploding facility. When he was finally rescued, every inch of the man's skin was marred by cold burns from the liquid ammonia, leaving his flesh a wreck of absurd patterns of black, pink, and red. He died in hospital the next morning.
Skills: Kei considers herself a graffiti artist, and has learned to work in several media. Spray-paint of various colours is, predictably, one of them, but she has also been known to paint by hand with a brush, scratch and carve into concrete, scar letters into living wood, and occasionally pull something impermanent but creative, like spelling out messages by jamming plastic cups into the holes of a wire fence. She also likes fossils, for a similar reason- She admires their timeless etchings upon the planet's history. Chasing this hobby has given her a basic but durable grasp of ecology and natural science.
Threads of Fate: 6- Kei's innate strength was stolid enough to safeguard her earliest weeks in the witch-harvesting industry. Her rate of development has finally slowed to a crawl, though, and it appears that in her experience she now has to push harder than ever in order to learn new things.
Magical Weapon: Pistol crossbows, repeating crossbows, and ballistas- If it strings like a bow but fires like a rifle, it's probably in Kei's arsenal. The shining arrows and bolts she shoots usually explode into paint flecks and glitter upon passing through a target. Kei considers the crossbow a handy compromise between the gratifying physical exertion of a spear or bow and the mechanical grace and ease of a firearm. Although pulling cranks and loading bolts has helped her put on a little muscle weight and she's generally satisfied with her choice, Kei still thinks her fragile build might be better suited for the gunpowder end of the spectrum.
Experience: 6- Kei has honed in on her ability to manage witch populations and keep them to a desirable minimum. Her hunts are inspired and have a rather high success rate, and her skills with a crossbow are sufficiently potent for her needs. The confidence she has gained through her witch-harvesting exploits has permeated the rest of her activities, and Kei rarely feels unsafe, even alone at night.
Magical Ability: When Kei wished, she wanted results that were not only visible but brutally vivid. Whether or not the death of Jason achieved what she desired if she had allowed herself to wish more calmly, the life she now leads echoes that moment as something striking, colourful, and deeply destructive.
Core: Chronic VandalismWhen Kei or her weapons come into contact with a foe, or even anyone she is feeling significantly angry at, tangles and loops of crude and indecipherable cyan green graffiti will radiate outwards over their skin or clothes from the point of contact. These markings can be removed by washing or vigorous rubbing, and propagate in a radius that increases by about fifteen centimetres per second (considerably faster via contact with crossbow bolts). These etchings resemble spray-paint, and leave shallow chemical burns as they move.
Signature: Krijgsdos (Warpaint)Young and frustrated, Kei's anger may lack direction more often than not, but in the hands of her magic it can be powerful. While enraged, Kei's body begins to dissolve and trail off into streaks and whirls of spray-paint, which splatters all around her within a three-meter radius, leaving the same cyan green burns as Chronic Vandalism. In this state, Kei can move more fluidly due to her partially liquefied form, and incoming weapons must be aimed carefully in order to avoid sliding off or through her. Permanent Marker and Coat of Paint are disabled for the duration of Krijgsdos, but Memory in Stone and Art Imitates Life remain usable.
Secondary: Art Imitates LifeA single target is marked out by Kei using an inkblot that frays at the edges, shrivelling slowly until it eventually disappears. For the duration of the spell, a set of scalding whirls of Chronic Vandalism will autonomously follow the stain's bearer, moving at a speed similar to that of a sprinting human by transmitting themselves over the surface of any solid or liquid medium. Graffiti spawned by Art Imitates Life cannot increase in surface area once it detaches from Kei. The inkblot cannot be transferred between targets until it either expires, or a marked entity makes contact with a more preferable target.
Secondary: Coat of PaintIncoming damage to Kei while transformed will sometimes disappear upon contact, leaving only an inked or painted likeness where it would have otherwise impacted. This tends to happen mostly when she catches a spell or weapon on her white coat, and almost exclusively to projectiles- Melee weapons tend not to have this problem. Notably, once an attack has been caught on her coat as paint, another projectile that manages to hit the exact now-painted spot will always pass through. De- and Re-transformation cleans her outfit, but not her skin.
Secondary: Permanent MarkerKei draws a Sharpie through the air, leaving a thin line of rigid, stationary black ink. This ink acts as a solid object and cannot be moved from its hovering location in the air, but can be broken. It has the consistency of brittle iron. Breaking any one part of a scrawl will cause the rest to disappear.
Secondary: A Memory in StoneWhen transformed, Kei sometimes moves using props that don't exist- They seem to flash into being for a split second and vanish as soon as she stops making contact with them, having used them as handlebars or stepping stones. Oddly, they all have the shape of fossils, mostly branching leaves or spiralling shells.
██████: 36%- Knowing Kei's tendency to explore and mark territory with graffiti, and her ultimately extroverted nature, her expansion has been a predictable move, but between the pressure she puts on herself to find new witches and that which she has already endured second-hand from Katherine's situation, she has already started to wear herself down. Every time her strive to establish permanence is thwarted, Kei sinks a little further back into feeling like nothing.
Notes: Kei is still unaware of the true nature of witches and Magical Girls, but has begun to consolidate increasingly dark suspicions, noting the correlation of Barrier architecture and Kathy's used sketchbooks. Her amateur enterprises into ecology also leads her to wonder why witches are so remarkably diverse, given that they reproduce asexually and only very rarely fuse.
Prior injury in fighting witches has lead her to discover the connection between her Soul Gem and soul, with Kyubey's prompting, though as an atheist, she doesn't seem to care all that much- Though she does keep her Gem closer than ever. Her parents, permissive and loving as they've ever been, assume that she sneaks out to go on cute dates with a long time boy- or girl-friend, and suspect nothing of the truth.
Vec,
Timemaster
