Post by fricco on Nov 24, 2010 13:39:43 GMT -5
(White Magician Costume)
Legal Name: Cicero Corneo
Current Aliases: Fricco diMarin
Police File Codename: Mimic
Known Aliases for Mimic: Jonny Thane, Ulrich Wulf, Valiant Carignan, and Bailey C. Peacock
Childhood Nicknames: C.C. and Chickpea
Alignment/Affiliation: Neutral / Me, Myself, and I
Archetype: Outlaw
Occupation: Con Artist / Freelancer
Age: 21
Height: 6 ft
Weight: 175 lbs.
Race: Mixed
Appearance: A pretty boy with a face that would make the girls swoon, or a hobo wino with dirty clothing, or a debonair high-roller with money to burn, or an overly dramatic actor for a musical… Watchful and observant, he can become anybody he chooses to be. When not in makeup, he has sandy hair and icy-blue eyes. Lean but muscular, he had the body build of someone who’s done acrobatics.
History/Background: The son of a Honey Bee girl, Cicero Corneo was orphaned at four years old when his mother was murdered in their home. After his mother’s murder, he was taken to live with uncle, Don Corneo—where he suffered years of physical and verbal abuse at his uncle’s hand. At the age of ten, he ran away to seek a better life.
Cicero made it half way to Kalm when he was attacked and nearly killed by wild fiends that roamed the area. He awakened, later, to find himself under the care of a gruff-looking man named Jack (see Gram’s profile, RP sample). Although the man had treated Cicero’s wounds, the boy did not trust the stranger, and made to leave as soon as he was able. Cicero stole Jack’s money, and was about to escape with it when Jack caught him. It turned out that Jack had known the boy’s intentions all along. Jack also knew that Cicero was a runaway, and the nephew of the crime boss, Don Corneo. It seemed that Cicero’s attempt at a new life would soon be over; but then, Jack gave the would-be thief two choices: Either a return trip to Midgar and Don Corneo, or an apprenticeship. Suffice to say, he accepted the later.
Cicero soon learned that Jack was a former mercenary who retired from his wet work to live a quieter life. Under the moniker of “Libra the White Magician,” the former mercenary now performed tricks of Mental Magic for Boko’s Traveling Circus. As the years passed, Jack trained Cicero on how to read people and the clues around them in order to deduce facts about their target. These skill where used foster the illusion of psychic abilities. Taking the new name of Fricco diMarin, Cicero remained under Jack’s tutelage until a year after Meteor Fall. Jack had contracted geostigma along with most of the Circus members. It was not long before those within the circus started to die, one by one. Before long, Jack died too.
Cicero was lost. He no longer had a mentor to follow or a direction in life. The circus was gone, and with it, the only man he could approximate to a father.
Once again, without a home or a family, Cicero took to the road.
Without his mentor, he quickly returned to his boyhood escapades of unlawful behavior. However, instead of becoming a common thief, he utilizes the skills that Jack taught him toward schemes that are more elaborate. In the five years since Metor Fall, Cicero has been drifting about the planet as a Confidence Man and Black Market Commodities Trader.
For the necessity of a stable income when he is between pursuing marks, he works as a costume designer and make-up artist for theatre troupes like LOVELESS and the Gold Saucer Event Square. This job also allows him the resources he needs to construct false identities. At the Gold Saucer, it allows the opportunity to identify easy marks. He does not like staying in either place for too long, so he's constantly moving around. Currently, his true identity is unknown to those within law enforcement; therefore, their investigation files refer to him as the “Mimic.” To give the law an easier chance to catch him—and because he is ever so fond of a game of Cat and Mouse—Cicero the mimic to use aliases that are in themselves clues to his current con.
Personality (Young Cicero): In his youth, Cicero was an aggressive and unfocused street kid. He rarely finished anything he started, and was easily bored. He was always out running with the other slum kids to find thrilling and dangerous things to do—and then lie about having never done it. It was something that frequently got him into trouble with either the law or with his uncle, Don Corneo. Often, he was caught stealing, bullying other children, setting fires, drinking, smoking, or using controlled ITEMS. If he did get away with his delinquency, he would be caught later because he was bragging about it to the other kids. There were a number of occasions when the Don had to bail his nephew out of juvenile confinement. By ten, Cicero ran away from Midgar because he wanted to get away from everyone and everything. He got tired of living in the slums, and the people there. He left to seek a better life for himself. It was not until after Cicero joined the circus and was apprenticed under Libra, that he was taught how to focus his aggression into something more productive.
Personality (Current Cicero): Outwardly, he may come across as charming, slick, and street smart. Cocky, arrogant, and full of self-confidence, Cicero loves attention and gets very annoyed if someone takes the credit for something he did. As a sociopath, friendliness from him is often an act. He will lie to get what he wants, and views others as tools. Cicero prides himself in being sly, and loves to play games with others. He sees the world as a big game and others within it as his competition. He can be selfish, and does not often have empathy for others. He may come across as emotionally disconnected in situations that would normally call for intense reactions. Any emotion he does display is usually lacking in true depth. Although he might be easy to provoke to anger, such displays are only short-lived tantrums; however, he can get violent when angered. Cicero is impulsive at times, and may act on whims that feed his need for excitement. He has little emotional depth, and has a hard time maintaining enduring relationships. He might be considered bisexual, as that he has no real preference for either men or women. He's pretty liberal in his beliefs, and may not always hold a sense of guilt or shame for his actions. Outside The Code that his mentor has taught him, he has a hard time distinguishing right from wrong.
Abilities: As a character based on the Mime class, Cicero is a "Jack of all trades, master of none." He is abnormally fast at learning how to do things from others. As a result, he is also easily bored and never sticks to any one thing for too long. Cicero has a variety of obscure skills that he had picked up while living in the circus—like juggling, acrobatics, sleight of hand, and escape techniques. He is savvy with travel, and is always on the move. Amongst his skills gained as an orphan who joined the circus and became the apprentice of a magician who performed mental magic, his best talent is in observation and deduction. Currently, he uses that talent toward creating disguises or impersonating people.
Weapons: Pocket knife, cigarettes, handgun, chloroform, bailing wire, needles, razor blades, thread, scissors, rolled up newspapers, chewing gum, broom stick, semtex, his trusty make-up kit, a Wutai Dynasty porcelain vase, and a piece of Black Market Ancient Technology—pilfered from a ShinRa Laboratory—that may or may not be a Dress Sphere Artifact.
(Stolen Police Uniform)
RP SAMLE:
When he was four—almost five!—the boy liked to hunt for treasure. His mama and he didn't have much at home, so he would set out on afternoon journeys through a jungle of steel and concrete to find neat things to put inside their small apartment—which was located in slums of Sector 6. Mama didn't like it when he went off on his own; but he was a Big Boy now, and not Mama's little "Chickpea" anymore!
It was Friday—he remembered it being that day because Mr. Pisco always got new fish shipments on Friday—when the Big Boy was returning home from playing outside with the other kids. The streets were getting dark and he knew that Mama would have dinner ready, soon. One step at a time, he climbed the steep steps that led to the apartment that he and Mama shared. When he got to the door, voices from other side made him stop. He had heard a man talking with Mama—a man who sounded very loud and very angry about something.
"What's the meaning of this?"
"It's hard. I can't keep living like this," he heard his mama say to the man. "He's starting to ask questions…"
The boy leaned against the door, while standing on his tippy-toes, and tried to peek through the keyhole. All he could see was a man who was very fat and dressed in red.
"So, you decide to put this… revelation on me, now?" He heard the man growl, "Why?"
"He's your son, and I need help—"
"My son?! What are you trying to gain, telling me a lie like that? Do you think I'd take you two in? That we'd get married? You're kidding yourself."
"That's not what I meant, I—"
"Don't call me, again, you slum whore. I have nothing to do with you, or that kid."
The boy stumbled away from the door when he heard the man approach. With a loud creak of the rusty hinges, the door swung open and the Red Fat Man stepped out. Although, to this day, he could not recall the face of the man that had visited their home, he did remember that the Red Fat Man had paused in the doorway when he noticed the small boy sitting across the floor. He remembered that the man stared at him with scary eyes that reminded the boy of those Bad Guys he’d seen in Tommy's comic books. After a long moment, the Red Fat Man inclined his head and turned away.
When he went inside, he found Mama crying. He didn't want to see Mama sad, so he showed her what the nice lady with the flower wagon had given him—a yellow tulip, the Flower Lady had said.
His mama had smiled and said, "That's nice, my lil’ Chickpea. Let's put it in a vase." After searching around their apartment, they put the flower in an emptied soda bottle and set it on their kitchen table.
For a long time, the boy didn't think much about the man that had visited that day.
It was getting cold from the chill of winter when he had returned home, early, from playing in the park with his friends. He'd forgotten his coat and his nose was starting to get running. Mama'd worry about him getting sick if he was out too long, and she'd always say they couldn't afford the doctor bills.
After he climbed the stairs to and made it to the apartment door, he found that it was slightly open. Door had a hole by the knob and it looked like it'd been broken. When he went inside, he saw that that room was very messy. Messier than that time he'd once snuck that big brown puppy home, and it had gotten out of his room and tried to eat the couch! The table was smashed and the curtains were torn. Their small bookshelf was on its side, and Mama's prized knickknacks all over the floor, along with the used books that she's scrapped her gill together to buy for him because it was important that he have an education if he was going to be a Big Boy.
Maybe Mama brought home a big puppy and it had gotten out, too?
With a rush of excitement, the boy ran through the apartment, looking for his mama—and maybe a new friend!
He soon found Mama sleeping in her room with her face down on the bed with ketchup everywhere. He climbed onto the bed and went to her side to push his small hands against her shoulder. The ketchup was very sticky and he wondered how his Mama had spilt it all herself. It was really weird because Mama was always making him wash his hands cause she didn’t like things getting dirty.
He tried to wake Mama up but shaking her shoulder calling out, "Hey, Mama, wake-up!"
But…
She never woke up.
Later, uniformed men with helmets hiding their faces had come to take Mama away. They wouldn't tell him what happened, no matter how much he cried to know. Then, a man that his mama knew from work had come to take the boy away, too. The man had said that he was the boy's uncle, and that he'd come to take care of the boy. He'd said that Mama had had an accident. Mama had gone away and she won’t be coming back.
"Come along, Cicero," his uncle had said. "You’re mom’s dead and you're coming to live with me."
When the boy was ten, he decided that if there was one thing he knew for certain, it was that he did not want to prove his so-called uncle right—that a fatherless kid from the slums could never amount to anything useful in life.
He was tired of the beatings and he was of the old man's words: No future outside of pick-pocketing and prison can be expected for the bastard son of a Honey Bee and some faceless lover of hers.
Hell, maybe the old man was right, but that didn't stop the boy from wanting to punch the loudmouth's fat mug.
However, when faced against the look of admiration that his sister—a fellow orphan—would often direct toward the man, the boy never could follow through with the urge. His sister, for reasons beyond understanding, idolized the man. It was as though he were some sort of hero to her. Did she see the world through such rose-colored glasses, that she was completely blind to the fact that the man was nothing but a slime ball?
Or, was Don Corneo generally nicer to the female members of the boy's patch-work, imitation of a family?
Either way, it didn't matter. It wasn't like he'd see either of them—or visit his dead mother's grave, for that matter—ever again.
He'd had enough of this damned city, enough of the slums, enough of Midgar, and enough of his life-debt to Don Corneo. It wasn't worth it. Not anymore. He wanted to get away from the hell of a home, and away from his Uncle’s fist.
He wanted a better life.
The decision was made; there would be no turning back.
He just had to wait for the right moment.
It took a lot of patience, observation, and a fair amount of sneakiness; but, the boy had managed to swipe an MTID—a Midgar transit pass in which the ID access code would allow him to pass through the security checkpoints. With the pass, the boy stowed aboard one of the few trains that still traveled outbound from the Sector-1 train station.
And so the boy left Midgar behind.