Aasim

"'Beware the old man in a world where men die young'"

Appearance
Aasim wears elegant paladin-like armor with white and light blue tones. In combat and other situations, he wears a white headwrap and a ceramic mask (Shown in picture). His glass shards usually dangle around and beside him. He has short graying hair, along with light stubble, and the left side of his face permanently burnt and missing hair. Burn marks affect other parts of his face; the left ear is distorted/folded in, and the left eye is partially whiteish-blue. A good overall cosmetic comparison is that he looks like a skinnier Denzel Washington with burn marks and dansers armor.

Personality
Aasim acts very wise, and somewhat quiet to strangers. Most of the time, he prefers to stay quiet in the face of verbal conflict. He doesn't enjoy talking about his past, especially when brought up casually or in a group of people. However, he knows a whole lot about the world and people in it and is happy to share with anybody who would like to know. Although he is somewhat quiet, he is very assertive and intimidating when people act out of line in a bad way.

Gifts/Equipment
Rift displacement- Aasim's main power, allowing him to capture/effect/store "zones". On activation, lines draw on the ground but quickly move to loose shards. The barriers of reality glow bright grey-blue before the area is stored or changed. The most commonly used ways include flipping pieces of the world upside down or storing hostile troops/powerful people to use in other areas/other battles later on.

Reality shards- Opaque shards of varying size and shape that float behind Aasim's back. Each holds a chunk of the displaced rift, resembling the shape of how it formed in the ground. Shards can be used as an edged weapon, to apply the reality affliction heavily. Shards are very fragile, only a little less fragile than thick glass. Time stays frozen within the shards in their dormant state.

Remnant scattergun- Elegant shotgun, shoots very small reality shards. Pellets are weaker than normal birdshot but are extremely hard to find in objects. Each pellet acts as a cracking point for the reality shard activation. Pellets get the reality affliction effect activated when fired.

Affliction- Effect given to anything that the glass may enter (i.e., stabbing, burying, shooting), or any time the shards are not within Aasim's immediate reach. Attempting to move between dimensions with the affliction will result in reality cracking between the pieces nearby. Getting afflicted typically gives an object a greyish-blue hue. Living things typically start hallucinating and losing autonomy, as well as making their eyes opaque.

Vagrant's car- Reinforced but deteriorated blue & white SUV that Aasim and Aliyah use to drive around the battlegrounds. Based on the Chevrolet K5 blazer.

Background
Aasim was born into a middle-class Victoriam family, in the capital. Nothing was particularly significant about his childhood, except for the fact that his parents were merchants and he helped them out often. He developed his gift later than most people, when he was around 15, and kept it under the radar for a bit while helping his family out. Eventually, the government found out and made arrangements for his boarding schooling. A few nights before he was set to go, he was kidnapped from his family and taken to the military country.

When he arrived, his education ahead of him was voided and he was instantly recruited to be a transportation officer. His job was to capture heavy cargo and move it around by train. After he got a good amount of practice with his power, he was promoted to moving ground troops. Aasim was heavily protected whenever he was included in battle, which bothered him heavily. Just about a year ago he was part of the common man, but now he was some privileged officer sitting in a bunker and watching his transported troops get sent to slaughter. Due to his forced cooperation, he was promoted to being a commanding officer of the transport/escort division at a young age. More responsibility was piled on top of him over the next few years until he reached his breaking point.

When Aasim was in his late 20s, he stole a spare patrol vehicle, some important shipments, and made a run for freedom. He fled to Vilaria’s outskirts for a while, in hopes of eventually finding his parents, before realizing that the military country was searching everywhere nearby. He took his supplies and headed south, into Aurub. He found his way around the major trading posts and lived a nomadic-lifestyle for a few years, making his pay through selling the surplus of stolen military loot.

Eventually, in his early 30's, he met a woman named Mariana at the trading town of sunpike. She was also a nomadic trader, wandering throughout aurub alone  They both had a lot in common, both of them being runaway military drafts. They spent a lot of time together and settled down in a small townhouse-type house near the town square. They got married and had a son, having a daughter soon after. Their names were Ethan and Diana. Ethan was a fire user, and Diana wasn't old enough to know her gift yet. At the events of the sunpike siege, Aasim was 41, and his kids were 13 and 9, respectively.

Seige of Sunpike (Connected story)
Sunpike was a dock/trading town on the northern shoreline of Aurub, known for a large triangular shadow that cooled off the town in the afternoon. It was somewhat developed as a town and was pretty safe in comparison with the rest of Aurub. Most visitors were there to buy from the bazaar, while most of the permanent residents were semi-wealthy merchants. The town was run by partially by an anonymous single leader, who was likely assassinated shortly before the siege. The town also allowed a vigilante justice system where gift users are heavily expected to contribute, which helped the town survive without a real government.

Without the town knowing, the anonymous mayor had been paying protection money to the scorchers, to help the town survive. Since he is presumed dead, and the scorchers didn't know that, they showed up at the bazaar and demanded payment. The townspeople didn't know anything about the scenario, and the situation escalated when Aliyah picked up a hostage and threatened to kill him if nobody was going to pay up or get the mayor.

There were only 4 gift users in town that day; a dust storm controller, a portal-using swordsman, Aasim, and his son Ethan, a teenage fire user. Aasim was getting his shop ready for opening, while the other gift users were wandering in the bazaar. The situation quickly escalated when Aliyah executed the hostage, sending the town into a panic. When the dust storm character started to summon, she got sent to Butch's dimension and was killed by Aliyah. The fight continued as many of the common people tried to fight Butch and Aliyah, and failed. People were getting caught in the crossfire in the duststorm confusion. More panic was caused when Ethan accidentally set fire to a few houses trying to hurt Aliyah.

While Aliyah was busy on her rampage, she didn't notice that Ethan had locked Butch in a headlock with a gun to his head. He demanded that Butch would put her and the portal swordsman into a fight favoring the latter. Butch really didn't want to, but he had to oblige to survive. Butch had to helplessly watch as Aliyah got her hands, face, and tongue cut up. He couldn't bear to watch it happen, so he gave Aliyah the upper hand again, and she easily won the battle. Butch told her what was happening before she was released, and she shot Ethan right after she was sent back to the real world.

Aasim saw this just as he was running out of his burning shop, face scarred with flame. He had just lost his wife and witnessed his son getting shot, and he was not in a good mental state. Nonetheless, he was unwillingly sent into Butch's dimension to fight Aliyah. He quickly outlined the ground and trapped Aliyah in a shard, making Butch think that his mom was just killed. As the dimension quickly faded away, Butch and Aasim gave each other the same grief-eyed look. Aasim wiped his tears and hastily ran to the residential part of town, preserving part of his house and 2 daughters in a reality shard, and running off into the barren landscape. The town did not survive the siege, and the remnants were quickly washed away in the shifting sands.

After the burning of sunpike, Aasim was left with no home, his wife and child dead, and another one suspended in time indefinitely. The only things he had were his car, a pistol, and the clothes on his back. So, he went back to what he knew best. He wandered the barren landscape, contemplating his life choices. He had no idea what to do with his daughter, since she was too young to survive in the war-torn world, and that Aasim was still a wanted man from the military country. He decided that it wouldn't be worth bringing Diana back for the foreseeable future.

He contemplated the risk of sending himself to his own memory shard by stabbing. He decided against this for many years, but the urge grew stronger and stronger every day. One quiet night, he took the risk, slowly stabbing himself in the chest/shoulder with the shard of reality, sitting in the driver's seat of his car. He spent a small amount of time with his daughter before having his life saved by a group of young people who stumbled upon his car.

They took him out of the car and helped nurse him back to health. The group was a bunch of pacifists who ran to Aurub in hopes of not having to ever kill. Most of them had some type of gift, and one was a weaponsmith in training. After spending a lot of time with them, Aasim appreciated their ideas and view on the world and told them about his plan, which was to resurrect Aliyah to help him make somewhere safe for his daughter. The pacifists really liked the outcome, but not the means. They all agreed to help him with some money and supplies, as long as he also kept then in a shard in hopes of being released when a safe spot was finally established.

So, they all pitched in with money or supplies, and the weaponsmith made Aasim his shard shotgun. They became held up in time indefinitely as well.

So now, the pressure was heavy for Aasim. Many people were depending on him to find some kind of safe haven, and the idea of a peaceful world was a distant idea. As he continued to wander, he didn't know what he could do. He was starting to grow old and weak, and he didn't have much time left for himself. He thought about the people who have tried his goal before and knew of the downfall of attempted communities. There was only one place he could think of that would be untouched by the war; the floating city. It would be difficult to enter and survive, but it wouldn't be used for battlegrounds, and raids were really unlikely. He considered bringing Aliyah back into this dimension even more, since they both had the same goal (just for different meanings), and he had power over her. He cut his losses and brought Aliyah back out of the reality shard, in hopes of creating this new safe haven before his time runs out.

Trivia

 * Aasim's early build was a combination of 2 conceptual characters- A bus driver for the wastelanders who could adjust angles and directions, and an artist character who had abstract figures to attack.
 * Aasim's original name was Nevada
 * Aasim was changed to a mother instead of a father, but was changed back.
 * Aasim was the replacement for Atlas, an armor-based character.
 * Aasim's favorite drink is red wine.