Cherry

## Origins

**Cherry Brooks** *(pronounced as **Cherī Burukkusu** in Japanese)*, is the fourth main protagonist of the StarSpace series. She is an introverted Japanese sixteen-year-old girl at Dream Academy High, who has an innate fascination for books and information. She is a more recently associated partner to Styra, occasionally following her wherever she goes. Her series' debut takes place in StarSpace 2.

In her early years, her parents *(**Lila Brooks** and **Bohan Brooks**)* raised Cherry in Tokyo, Japan when she was born. Cherry had developed blurred vision, requiring her to wear glasses at the age of 4. However upon initially trying to get her into Shohei Elementary, she was diagnosed with autism and ADHD by doctors according to her behavioral patterns when attending her class *(which later turned out to be a completely inaccurate diagnosis)*. Both parents initially started to reject or severely abuse Cherry behind closed doors because they were already struggling financially. They would berate threats at her if she were ever to tell on them. When Cherry turned 10, her parents had started considering divorce as their arguments against another ensued constantly regarding their past lives. Bohan got into depressed fits from working excessively for under minimum wage, causing him to start drinking and smoking heavily. This resulted in him dying from intoxication. Lila, however would continue to harass and blame everything on Cherry, including her husband's death. Cherry became isolated, submissive, and full of negativity mentally. She was abused so much that she would nearly attempt suicide very often.

One day, while Cherry was asleep in bed, Lila had busted in and grabbed her by the hair. She fought with Cherry as she tried to soak her entire head into a tub of extremely hot water mixed with soap for about an hour to kill her. This caused Cherry to develop high levels of trauma, nearly drowning her to death and almost losing her sight in the process. Fortunately, caring neighbors overheard all of the shouting that took place. Lila was reported and arrested, leaving Cherry to end up at the foster home *(similar to **Flight**)*. The caretakers at this place gave her new glasses due to them getting broken in the process of the last abuse.

After this incident, Cherry would become mute to hide her horrible past.

## A Slice Of Life

At 11, Cherry was able to focus more on her studies and became more smarter than the rest of her class in every subject. However, she preferred to do things alone and barely talked to anyone. Around this time, she started to get into many types of books. Most notably she became heavily invested in romance, mystery, or fantasy genres. Overtime this interest motivated her to focus on graduating. During this time, a certain neighbor named **Tano Zenshin** who was also in the same class. He was extremely silent as well after witnessing what he had heard back when Cherry's mother was not in prison.

After graduating from Shohei Elementary, Cherry chose to attend Dream Academy High School around the age of 15. On the surface, it was a high performing school with subjects that were taught at college-level curriculum. However, the darker secret of entering this school was that it was both elitist and socialist driven behind the scenes. A few people began to notice Cherry's mute nature and tried to become friends with her. This usually never succeeded however. Even Tano wasn't able to do anything since he was blind and could never see Cherry.

## Styra's Arrival

Upon getting a clue to where the Darkness Omnilumen may be, **Styra** ends up going around Earth to find it. Eventually she found out that Cherry was wearing an ancient relic similar to the one in her dream. She decided to eavesdrop on information regarding it but, there were barely any leads causing her to become impatient. As for searching online, there were no records of such a small artifact existing. The end result led to Styra trying to talk to Cherry as a means to get information on it, but as expected there was nothing. Finally as a last resort, Styra used the Time Omnilumen to freeze everything in place and then return everything back to normal after getting the mysterious item. Unfortunately, **Creperus** ended up finding her due to prior events, restoring time back to normal and creating mayhem across the school. One paralysis portal later, Styra and Cherry end up inside StarSpace's rival, **Mechatopolis**.