Age: 19
Gender: Female
Sexuality: Asexual
Race: Asian
Position: Petty thief; also skilled at parkour
Personality: Nicole's time on the streets has broken her emotionally and psychologically. The horrors and atrocities she has witnessed and faced over the course of her life in the slums have torn her apart mentally and broken her into almost nothing. She has taken a vow of silence; she communicates solely through her body language. She has serious trust issues; she lives with the inevitable feeling that she is going to be betrayed sooner or later. As such, she never sticks around anywhere for much longer than she needs to.
Even should she find someone she trusts and wants to stay with, Nicole's meek and quiet demeanor makes her a difficult person to get to know. The few people in her life that she actually tried to befriend ultimately left her behind, viewing her as too weak and submissive in order to survive. And on top of that, she suffers from poor self-esteem and no real willpower. As such, she is easily swayed and manipulated, quickly becoming a follower of a stronger, dominant personality. If she isn't failing to befriend somebody she feels comfortable with, she's being controlled and subdued into following someone else.
Against all odds, however, Nicole can survive on her own. While her lack of self-esteem prevents her from taking risks and expanding her horizons, she has enough self-confidence to understand where her capabilities lie and know her limits. She's too submissive to go out of her way to prove something to someone on her own, but there's enough of her confidence left to keep her going on her own.
Appearance: Nicole is small. She stands at four feet, eleven inches, and has a solid runner's body, though undernourished.
History: The first thing Nicole can remember is sitting alone on a street corner in the slums at about three years of age. No parents, no guardians. Just her and a small, palm-sized stuffed panda bear that looks like it's seen much better days. She's forgotten much of what happens after that until about age seven, at which point she begins to recall a tall, kind man that looked out for her and cared for her: Charlie. He taught her how to survive in the streets and raised her for the next five years. From her mentor and guardian, Nicole learned a several useful skills for survival in the slums: how to steal, how to remain invisible while doing so, and how to run if you fail - or known more colloquially, parkour.
Her thievery began at age nine. While with her guardian scavenging for food, Nicole began a game with him. Whenever Charlie would place food in his bag, she would sneak up on him and remove it, placing it somewhere else for him to pick up and restart the cycle. After ten extra minutes of scavenging than should have been necessary, Charlie caught on to Nicole's tricks. Rather than scold her for her actions, however, he decided to harness her talent. Charlie took her stuffed panda and hid it in his pocket. He told her that if she wanted it back, she would have to take it from him without him noticing. And if he noticed, it would turn into a game of tag. Once he caught her, the game would restart. It was in this manner that Nicole became proficient in thievery and parkour.
Charlie and Nicole began to use her skills to their advantage. They would take any supplies they came across: clothes, food, any form of tools. If they could use it, Nicole would take it. In their small corner of the slums, Charlie and Nicole were known for their exploits. And for the most part, those exploits were too small to be noticed by any of the bigger fish in the sea.
But of course, all good things come to an end. And for Charlie, there was no worse end it could have come to.
While running from a failed steal when she was twelve, Nicole slipped from a rooftop and into an alleyway below, right on top of an arms deal that was taking place between two local gangs. Paranoia kicked in amongst the gang members. Accusations were thrown, weapons were drawn, and threats were shouted as Nicole realized she was about to get caught in the crossfire of a gang war. In a panic, she tried to talk down both sides of the battle, but to no avail.
As the firing started, Charlie arrived to pull Nicole out of the alleyway. They began to run from the ensuing battle; just before they were about to escape, Charlie took a bullet to the leg. This turned into a bullet in the hip, which turned into a bullet in the shoulder. Nicole could do nothing but watch as the only person she ever knew died before her eyes.
The last thing he gave her was the panda.
Somehow, her twelve year old mind connected her failure to talk down the gangs with Charlie's death, thus sparking her vow of silence. For seven years, Nicole has lived a quiet, lonely life. She steals to survive, and she keeps a low profile, away from the eyes of the more violent members of the slum society. And every night before she sleeps, Nicole takes the panda and remembers her only friend.
