Ali Armadillo

=== General Information ===
Name: Ali Armadillo
Gender: Male 
Height: 3’7” 
Weight: 80 lbs. 
Sexuality: Straight/Heterosexual
Age: 24 Years Old
Species: Mobian Armadillo 
=== Personality ===
While Ali's generally a chill and friendly guy with most of the people he meets while on an adventure of his own or not on a bounty, he does have hot blooded tendencies and an eagerness to be known through either his knowledge or his actions. He has taken some sense of pride over the years in being known as a ‘hood rat’ or a ‘trench baby’. It always reminds him of where he came from and what his overall goal is: To live a life full of purpose and have meaningful connections with people, whether it be through direct or indirect means.  He may bond with a person if he feels he and a person share similar backgrounds and especially towards those that are less fortunate than him. Once they do earn his trust and get to know him, he can be seen as quite a loyal guy to those he gets close to and will even go so far to risk his livelihood to ensure their well-being. That doesn’t mean that he’ll just blindly trust someone though. He will become wary and skeptical of people he suspects of being fake, due to certain life lessons being drilled into his head during the time of being in the gang life. Being involved in street life has toughened him up and given him a view of what the world is like for people in the trenches like him. But it doesn't stop him from being a person who'll stand for his own principles, his way of life, and the people worth fighting for…even if it sometimes means going against the status quo and social hierarchy. 
Likes: Music (Some lofi beats, rap beats, R&B, etc.), meeting new friends, traveling to new places, cooking, jokes, roasts, drawing, ‘Black Air Force’ moments, etc.
Dislikes: Broccoli, cottage cheese, ‘snake’ ass dudes, very old memes, tardiness, his shell being mistaken for hair with 360 waves…
=== Skills ===
Skilled Parkourist - Years of outrunning and outmaneuvering local authorities as well as rival gang members in various environments have helped him develop excellent parkour skills.
Close Quarters Combatant - He is skilled at using certain types of close combat weapons like trench knives and the occasional laser dual pistols. He knows how to run the hands. That and being on several missions of the War with his ‘Wolverine Squad’ also helped with gaining some battle experience on the field.
Stealth & Pickpocketing - He knows a thing or two about being sneaky and subtle little bastard, picking up some little tricks from his uncle figure. 
Spin Moves & Acrobatics - Since he's an armadillo and can naturally curl into a ball, the Spin Jump and the Spin Attack were a piece of cake to use and teach himself. He additionally has various maneuvers to help him such as the Dash Climb,  Wall Run , Wall Jump, and the Somersault techniques.
=== Powers ===
Enhanced Durability & Strength - While on his various travels for the 5 years he was away, he's absorbed a good amount of Ring Energy by collecting Rings during this time. This in turn granted him a degree of decent enhancements to both his normal physical prowess and his durability. While his strength isn’t as vast as say Knuckles or Mighty, it’s enough to where some non-powered Mobians might take notice of it. This makes him a threat in his own right despite not having any noticeable superpowers like superspeed or flight.
Black Lightning/Electricity Manipulation - Thanks to a blessing by the gods above and being marked on the day of his birth due to a desperate prayer by his mother, he was granted the ability to call upon and wield the destructive power of black lightning. However, he currently can’t summon it at will without needing an extreme emotional trigger and it takes a lot of mental concentration to keep it from running wild.
=== Weaknesses ===
Long Range Combatants - Long range fighters are a pain to deal with, especially when he prefers to get up and personal.
Right Side Weaker Than Left Side - His right arm and leg is noticeably weaker than his left side due to being born prematurely and being sickly as a baby.
A Mobian Is Still A Mobian - Despite his Ring powered enhancements, he's still susceptible to things like diseases, poisons, flames, etc.
=== Backstory ===
==== Early Life… ====
Ali was born in the ghetto parts of the outskirts of Station Square, raised in his single mother’s care since his father didn’t bother to be around to help raise him after their breakup and separation. The two struggled over the years to live within their means in their neighborhood, which wasn’t really helped by the local gang activity and crime in certain areas of that complex. Despite all the financial struggles and the danger in the streets though, he was still at least able to get some sort of education by being home schooled. Unfortunately for him, this sense of normality would soon be shattered when he was 14 years old, when the local gang activity would finally visit their home in the form of a house raid from The Devil’s Syndicate: one of the most dangerous and notorious local gangs in the local ghettos. During the ensuing chaos, his mother--who had tried to force them away from their home-- was beaten within an inch of her life as the house was ransacked and burned. One of the older neighbors, Mr. Matteo--who had gotten well acquainted with the two--found the battered woman as well as the distraught armadillo when the young man had gotten home and saw the scene before him. The neighbor made a split second decision to make sure that the two got to a hospital. With his mother being comatose and their home basically gone, he felt he had no direction and wasn’t sure what to do or how he was going to get through this sudden misfortune in his life. That’s when Mr. Matteo offered to let him stay at his place until his mother woke up, but on the condition that Ali would occasionally help him out with little tasks at his shop. The armadillo agreed and thus, started their daily routine where Ali would go to school during the week and help Mr. Matteo on the weekends at his mechanics shop. He enjoyed spending his time there, learning from the old man about fixing vehicles and occasionally hot wiring them as over the next 7 months, their boss/employee relationship developed into a more cool uncle/nephew type deal. He'd even eventually gain a reputation among his peers as being an outgoing and friendly person despite sometimes being a troublemaker and starting stuff with authorities.
==== Joining The Street Life…. ====
One day though, the old mechanic decided to reveal his involvement in one of the lesser known gangs in the city, the Black Lotus. While their numbers were smaller than most of the others, they were just as vicious and cunning as the other gangs out there, especially the head honcho nicknamed ‘The Conquistador In Black’ who was rumored to be a retired army veteran. They were a biker gang who used coffee shops, bars, and places like his mechanic shop for use in their bases of operations. But the real reason the old mechanic told him all this? Well, he personally wanted to take Ali under his wing and teach him how to fight, so he could defend his mother or himself if something happened with the Devil’s Syndicate or any of the other rival gangs again. He also wanted to possibly recruit him into the gang for their own protection and also teach him the ways to survive in the streets.  (A few conditions he had to follow were: not getting involved with drugs, you could leave anytime so long as he didn’t betray them or compromise the gang, and always be willing to risk your life for your fam…) Ali then accepted the offer, wanting to get strong enough so that he could eventually get vengeance for what those Syndicate bastards did to his home and his mother. And so for the next 5 years, he was taught about the ins and outs of street life under the mechanic's guidance. Various experiences in the streets and encounters with the police allowed him to develop a plethora of skills like free-running and parkour maneuvers, pickpocketing, knife fighting, hand to hand combat, strategic thinking, etc.
==== Getting Vengeance & Leaving The Gang Life ====
On one of the gang's outings, he finally got the perfect chance for revenge that he wanted after getting some intel on the guys who did the deed. With eagerness and anticipation, he and a small squad stormed into one of the Syndicate bases and well. Those specific people who ransacked their house as well as put his mother in a hospital? Yeah, they got quite a bit of armadillo assisted karma. The bones broken, the blood that was shed, and just the fear those fools had after they saw him and his squad pull up was music to his ears. After that night of heightened adrenaline and vengeful catharsis, he found that he actually enjoyed raiding them and it gave him an outlet for his pent up emotions, especially after the innocence that was his normal life was taken from him at a young age. Of course, his mother had found out about what he had been up to when she had woken up. While she wasn’t exactly thrilled to hear that he had turned out the way he did, she was happy that he was safe and thriving in his own way. With everything taken care of and his mama no longer in danger, Ali decided to leave the gang in order to pursue other interests like bounty hunting and also to make a name for himself at Mr. Matteo's request.  5 years later when he’s 24, he’s now currently traveling around Mobius as a freelance bounty hunter and adventurer, occasionally returning back home to do some favors for his gang and visit his mother. During that time, he’s developed a more stern persona while on gang assignments or bounty contracts but has found enjoyment in going on his own adventures and helping other people in need. He's also heard of some crazy rumors about a speedy blue hedgehog and his friends as well as had a few encounters with a mad scientist in his travels.
=== Additional Information ===
-His favorite movie genres are action, kung fu, and mafia gangster type films.
-He likes to cook and learned a thing or two from his mother's recipes. He's surprisingly good at it. Dishes like jambalaya, chicken curry and rice, south fried cabbage, stroganoff, and dirty rice are among his favorites to make.
-He occasionally does traditional art for people whenever they have a request. He feels that he can go somewhere with this skill but feels like it needs improvement and refinement before anything else.
-He has a soft, maternal spot for animals and Chao, sometimes seen either playing with, feeding, or taking care of them in the Chao Gardens. 
-He and Mr. Matteo went to a pub for Ali's first legal drink on his 21st birthday. Ali didn't really like the taste of beer very much and decided to never to do that again, much to the old mechanic's amusement.
-His birthday is March 12th.
-He's a generalist when it comes to tastes in music, often listening to various genres depending on his mood.
Category:Males
Category:Armadillos
Category:Neutral Good
Category:Neutral characters
Category:Powers
Category:Bounty Hunters
Category:Strength Type Characters
Category:Heterosexuals
Category:Weapon Users
Category:Adventurers
Category:Adults
Category:Characters