Thomas Xu

Guardian of Light (Title)

Guardian of Selflessness (Title)

The Scholar (Title)

Darling (Walter)

Tom (Nickname)

Nary (Poppy)

Judy (Poppy and Walter)

Tin Man (Poppy)

Metal Detector (Poppy)

Thomas Jude Xu is an automaton created by the Price Foundation. He was originally assigned to Danniel Redmayne and later Hitomi Xu. He’s the current Overseer of Midra Spring and one of the original founders of the Nightmare Hunters. He’s one of the main characters in Beginnings and a side character in Passion

### Appearance

When he was younger he was described as being very handsome with dark silver hair and tanned skin. His most defining feature is his black eyes which can come off as a bit spooky to some people. In his late teens and early 20s, he was often seen wearing a long dark blue trench coat. As he got older he started wearing a couple of more layers of clothing like funny coloured scarves.

### Personality

Thomas is a very intelligent and wise man. He often serves as the voice of reason within the team, which is part of the reason why he’s considered the leader. Much like the other Nightmare Hunters, Thomas has a dislike for nobles and upper-class snobs. However, he is able to stay civil if forced into a situation with people he doesn’t particularly like.

Thomas has a major manipulative streak and will often take advantage of people. He does this due to not really understanding how this will affect others' peoples' feelings.

As he got older, Tom's demeanor became more cool and stern. This is a direct contrast most of his apprentices, who have more goofy and jovial personas. He's very gentle by word of Bernice, reportedly one of the easiest people to talk things out with.

### Relationships

#### Walter Grey

Walter is Thomas’ best friend and confidant. The pair met before the start of Beginnings and despite their wildly different personalities they instantly got along pretty well from the get-go. While Walter often complains and bemoans at being told what to do, but he will follow orders from Thomas. Walter respects Thomas’ leadership abilities and judgment, even jokingly referring to him as Boss or Master. Walter and Thomas have had their disagreements in the past, but often Walter admits that Thomas is always right in the end.
Thomas is shown to have a much better sense of humor when it comes to Walter’s antics unless it’s a serious situation, in which case Thomas doesn't hesitate to discipline Walter.

#### Poppy Redmayne

Poppy was Thomas’ first friend and another one of his confidants. Thomas and Poppy are openly friendly towards each other, having been close friends since Poppy was young and Thomas was in his teens. Upon being reunited for the first time in almost five years Thomas immediately and intently starts doing medical checks on Poppy to see if she’s been healthy for the past couple of years, showing how much Thomas cares about her even after not seeing her for five years. Poppy trusts Thomas more than anyone, even to the point where Thomas was her first choice as Ida’s godfather.

#### Maria Day

Maria Day is a fellow founder of the Nightmare Hunters and one of Thomas’ close friends. Much like Walter, Sonya and Poppy; Maria respects Thomas's leadership abilities. Despite her ladylike persona, Maria would rather go to Thomas for his opinions on certain topics like etiquette than go to someone like Hannahi.

#### Sonya Ryder

Sonya is another founder of the Nightmares and is someone Thomas is very protective over. Sonya thinks very highly of Thomas. She’s stated in the past that Thomas is the smartest guy she knows. Sonya felt an incredible amount of guilt when Thomas lost one of his legs when saving her life. While she’s been able to somewhat recover from the guilt there are bad days where the guilt bubbles up again. When this happens, Thomas is the only one who is able to reassure Sonya that the incident wasn't her fault and that he doesn't blame her for what happened.

#### Ari Redmayne

While Ari does respect Thomas, his respect came more from intimidation rather than loyalty, unlike the other hunters. Thomas actually respected Ari a lot, but due to Ari being scared to get close to the other hunters Ari knew nothing of Thomas’ admiration of him for a long time.

#### Yukino Lee

Yukino was one of the later members of the Nightmare Hutner. Just like with everyone else on the team Yukino didn't think anything of Thomas when they first started working together, but after spending more time with Thomas they grew to be close friends.

#### Ida Redmayne

Thomas loves Ida deeply and rarely gets mad at her unless she disobeys instructions without reason. After Poppy’s death and Avi’s breakdown, Thomas was the one who would end up taking care of Ida the most, due to Ida seemingly liking Thomas the best. Thomas was very caring to Ida and acted as a surrogate father to Ida for about five years despite not technically being Ida’s godfather.

#### The Midra Springs Hunters

While Thomas never had any children of his own, he’s raised many children over the course of his life, including Ren and Yui Saito, Bernice Ryans and Ula Smith. His apprentices love him very much and enjoy joking with him on occasion. An example of this is Ula loving calling him grand-papa.