Esteban Keronai

right|300pxEsteban Keronai is the name given to an anthropomorphic male echidna OC who is part of the Sonic the Hedgehog universe. He was resurrected from the dead (Or awoken from a deep sleep) after being out of action for 200 years along with two of his siblings, Anaria  and Draetus, in the topic Dimensional Travel 2 in the Sonic OC Roleplay Station. 
After a 2-year absence from the forum following the ending of the topic Dimensional Travel 2, he was brought back as a completely different character as a villain in OC Area. He is now a bitter, 30-something echidna who never got to fulfil his dreams of becoming an Elder on Angel Island due to the fall, and is doing anything he can to preserve their culture and way of life. The only problem is he's going about it in the complete wrong way, using hypnosis to brainwash people into serving under him. He's roleplayed by Casino Nights.
Holy poop, I've got a lot of editing to do... OC Area pretty much reinvented him as a character.
==Appearance==
Esteban has very dark red spines, nearing black, all over his body. He has dreadlocks which are adorned with  different-coloured markings and he has murky grey eyes, often with a soulless glare. He does not wear any clothes at all save for his gloves, which are very worn and light orange in colour, with very thin red line patterns on them, and his shoes which are brown sandals fashioned from leather and wood.
However, as of OC Area, he now has dark blue spines which are consistent in colour all over his body. His facial features are slightly worn due to his age, as he is now a good five or six years older than his brother Chakra and ten years older than his youngest brother and sibling Draetus. His dreadlock rings are moulded from precious materials to mirror the style used by the Elders in Ancient Echidna society. However, only materials that were found on the Island are used, including gold, diamond and platinum. Following the trend of Island exclusivity, he wears a pair of wooden sandals that were once worn on the Island, and he has kept up perfect maintenance of them himself. His redesign features no iris or pupils, he now only has white sclera in his eyes. His face and head quills are covered in white tribal patterns, again to mirror the appearance of the Elder that he was so close to becoming.
==Personality==
Esteban is a surprisingly calm individual who, like his brother Chakra, often spends a lot of time thinking different things through before he acts upon them. Despite the fact that he is willing to protect the Emeralds at all costs, even when Mobians want to use them for good, he will still never kill anyone needlessly and believes that there must be a reason behind everything. He is also a highly intelligent individual. Despite this, he finds pleasure in torturing those in his way until they submit to him. He often explains his goals in a way that makes him out to be a genuinely innocent Mobian- which he is at heart. He simply has differing opinions on the same thing, although these differences make it hard to determine his true alliance. Esteban can become very angry when pushed, but refrains from cursing. He will only accept another's friendship if they are willing to help him carry out his goals, and does not hesitate to force them into doing so. He is also very protective of his siblings, notably Anaria and Draetus. 
His appearance in OC Area vastly changed the character's personality. He retains the same eerily calm aspect as before, regardless of who he is talking to, or the situation. However, anger him enough and he will not hesitate to retaliate with deadly force. However, he is able to employ a subtle hint of superiority about his person when talking to people that he is not particularly fond of. He takes his views to heart, which he considers sacred, and as he strives so much to preserve something which arguably may be better left forgotten (A view prominently put forward by Aya-Ka) he may be seen as literally living in the past. However, at the same time, he upholds all of the Ancient Echidna rules as well- He does not like conversing with members of other species and so sees no problem with brainwashing them to do his bidding.  
Similarly, he refuses to share knowledge the Ancient Echidna way of life with anyone- Which means that it is still a mystery to the majority of the Mobian population, and he has become incredibly lonely through not having any echidnas to talk to (He was convinced that only he and Chakra survived the destruction of the Island for over five years), but this is his own fault due to his selfish ways. If he wants something done, it will be done, at any costs. His two wishes lie in restoring the former 'glory' of the Ancient Echidna society, and meeting a suitable female echidna which he can call his own. However, as Aya-Ka is quick to point out, he would be mad to think that anyone would want to be around him, as all of the other echidnas he has encountered, or are known to exist in OC Area so far, have all settled into life on mainland Mobius and accepted the culture that came with it to various degrees. For this reason, he has disowned his brothers and despises Aya-Ka even more for 'abandoning their heritage'. This is seen in OC Area where he constantly refers to Draetus as Aya-Ka's companion or friend, rather than saying 'my brother'. 
== Backstory ==
Dimensional Travel 2 
Not much is currently known about him regarding his backstory, however he mentioned in Dimensional Travel 2 that he grew up on Angel Island 200 years before the timeline of that topic along with his nine siblings. They lived within the highly powerful clan of echidnas at the same time as Chaos Energy was being researched and experimented with for the first time. To try and figure out its true potential, Esteban and his nine siblings were chosen to be exposed to varying amounts of Chaos Energy. The first three that were administered the most died instantly, and two of the echidnas after that died soon afterwards. However, Esteban was just below these five and remarkably received near to a perfect amount- Enough to give him a vast amount of power and multiple abilities, but not enough to kill him. After this, the echidnas listed in decreasing dose strength order are- Anaria, Chakra and Draetus. 
Despite the fact that his body was not affected by the massive influx administered, his mind began to be altered by the power and so hypnotised Anaria and Draetus into working for him to 'protect' the Emeralds, mainly involving slaughtering anyone who got close to them. Chakra saw what was coming and so departed from the island, something that was forbidden and so knew that he could not come back. Due to them being a massive threat to everyone, the elder echidnas sealed them inside a temple, bound by magic, from which they could not escape. 
After 200 years had passed, they were resurrected due to the dimensional ríft that had occurred in their dimension, the shockwaves from its formation dissolving the spell's effects which were used to keep the doors sealed and prevent the echidnas from teleporting out- Leading on to the events of the roleplay topic Dimensional Travel 2. 
OC Area onwards
Esteban was part of the tribe that represented the Yellow Emerald on Angel Island, one of the seven tribes on the seven peninsulas lining the edge of the Island. It was decided, from the moment that he was hatched, that he would be given the prestigious title of Elder of his tribe, of which there were only four per tribe. Once every fifty years or so, new ones would be chosen based on the professions of their ancestors. If there were no high-ranking echidnas within six generations, they were eligible for the position. As such, he was isolated from the rest of the echidnas his age for long periods of time and was given his own private tutor, such a thing that was only reserved for Elder apprentices. This even more intense style of learning than what was the norm in Echidna society already gave him knowledge of things that was withheld from the rest of society, for example that echidnas were actually biologically compatible with other Mobian species, yet the Elders maintained telling the others that they were not to discourage them from leaving the Island. With no other sources to compare it to, things such as this became accepted by society. Esteban took part in many ceremonies and oversaw even more, being given more and more important tasks as he grew older.
==Powers==
Esteban has a variety of magic-based and spiritual-based powers brought on by the Chaos Energy influx, all done by reciting Ancient Echidna phrases.
*Teleportation- He can teleport from place to place, however it has more of a negative effect on him than any of the other echidnas affected. This is an early form of Chaos Control.
*Hypnotism/Mind Control- His eyes glow a deep purple when he initiates this. A white flash is emitted which sends the person unconscious, a state from which Esteban can give them commands in before telling them to wake up. The effect on the recipient varies depending on how strong they are mentally. An example of this technique was used on Wechnia in Dimensional Travel 2.
*Healing- His hands glow a grey colour, similar to his eyes when he does this. Wounds begin to re-seal after he passes his hands over them in this state, however the more the wounds heal physically, the bigger negative effect it has on Esteban's stamina and wellbeing. If he is too careless with these things, the recoil effects could kill him. 
As of his OC Area redesign, however, he no longer has any powers except for hypnosis. However, almost to make up for this change, it has been greatly amplified. He no longer needs to murmur any incantations (Differing from Chakra) and he can now easily control tens of Mobians at the same time, providing they are not psychics that could block it, and their resulting state keeps their personality mostly the same which means that it is impossible to tell whether they are under the control of Esteban or not. However, he knows full well that the only Mobian on the planet with psychic powers strong enough to completely block Esteban's hypnosis is Aya-Ka, a female echidna who he used to discriminate against on the Island.
==Appearances in forum topics==
So far, Esteban has only appeared in two forum topics, Dimensional Travel 2 and OC Area, making him one of the most scarcely used of Casino Nights' characters. The author deliberately decided not to use him in any of the more casual topics such as OC and Authors and Ask the OCs until they introduced him in OC Area, and even then it is unlikely that he would ever be used in those topics.
==Other==
Esteban was originally planned to be a main character in the fanfiction 'Tribal Resurgence' by the author Casino Nights, but was removed due to the author's hesitance towards having an OC in their first fanfiction where canon characters were the majority. According to the author, the Word file name for the fanfiction is still saved as 'Esteban'. This means that he is one of the first OCs that Casino Nights ever made, pre-dating most of his siblings and nearly all of the characters under the same author's control that are commonly used in the forum topics.
He is the oldest Keronai sibling.
During the events of Dimensional Travel 2, his mind is cleared of the dark Chaos energy when the Chaos Emerald from Anatoly Levinski Prower's dimension has a violent reaction with the seven from Esteban's, and he behaves almost completely differently afterwards.
His introduction was delayed in the OC Area topic for some time due to difficulties deciding when or where the best time to do it was. The blurry, Mobian-like figure that passed Nico in the street in OC Area after the latter had fallen out with Marilyn LeFaux was originally intended to be Esteban, but the author changed their mind at the last minute and so it disappeared. Then, he was supposed to make a grand entrance by explaining his backstory alongside meeting Venice in Ravenous' office, but this was changed after the author decided to join Mad World and so most of his backstory was given to Draetus in that topic instead. Penultimately, he was supposed to make an even more over-the-top entrance when the 'Do-Gooders' finally went back into the Factory to shut it down, but as this seemed a long way off chronologically (The healers were asleep and most of the group was split up) the author decided to finally give him a sudden introduction in the restaurant Aya-Ka and Draetus visit following their reunion.
Category:Characters