Valen Rhodes

Name: Valen Rhodes
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Height: 5' 11" (180 cm)
Weight: 177 lbs (80.3 kg)

Attitude: If Valen could be described with one word, it would be extravagant.  He is an extrovert with almost a need to be the center of attention.  He is very showy and often talks loud with a lot of hand movement.  He likes to make his sentences dramatic and so over emphasizes much of what he says or does.  He is a fairly talkative person and is normally in a good mood.  He is most often seen with a smile on his face and a look of confidence.  

Valen is very proud and overconfident to the point of overestimating his own abilities.  This leads to him attempting things he can't normally handle which often ends in failure.  If he does lose or fail he gets upset but puts on a facade and acts as if it didn't matter to him or that he was holding back.  As such, he can also be very stubborn.  Valen just wants to get his way, and it usually takes force to get him to change his mind.  Being as proud as he is, he often has a warped view of how others perceive him.  He believes that most people respect and look up to him, even if that is most of the time not the case.  

Most importantly, Valen is a hardcore stalker.  By nature, Valen is asexual, but he is still drawn to those he sees as strong or have something about them that stands out.  When he finds someone, he will follow them around and note everything they do.  While doing this, if the person is particularly strong or unique, Valen will even start drooling.  All of this is a result of Valen's twisted views of love.  Being asexual, Valen never felt any typical form of attraction to anyone, so the only way he could make sense of "love" was by being obsessive over them.  This also extends to his views on other people.  If he finds someone else is interested in him, he will fully expect them to stalk him as well.

Valen seems to also be lacking in the department of empathy.  When he takes action he often doesn't take other peoples emotions or feelings into account.  This can be especially seen in his views on stalking.  He finds no fault in such an invasion of their privacy.  

• To Friends: Friends of Valen are often in a strange situation.  As Valen is only really interested in people he deems strong or unique, and usually proceeds to stalk these people, it takes a lot of tolerance for feelings of "friendship" Valen has to be mutual.  As such, friends of Valen are often people who he has a large interest in, or they have an interest in him.  When not stalking, Valen will openly rant about his adventures stalking various people, even to the one he is stalking.  He sees no shame in it and even thinks it a compliment to them.  There are cases, however, of Valen befriending people and not stalking them.  This is in the case of the other party normally being of equal or lesser strength than him while still having an interesting quality or potential.  At this he will opt to "take them under his wing" and dub them in as his underling.  To this, Valen will boldly declare that they have to do everything he says.
  
  
• To Allies: For anyone he would consider merely an ally, acquaintance, or stranger Valen puts on a bit of a facade.  He will act very professional and business-like when dealing with these kinds of people.  He will still speak up and use many hand movements, but it does not give off a chaotic impression.  This often leads to good first impressions of Valen by most people.  After getting to know him a little more however, that image is completely broken as they begin to learn of his more...not so proper hobbies.  
  
  
• To Foes: Valen just loves to get his way, so if someone opposes his views he will do all he can to assert his opinion over theirs.  He doesn't like anyone or anything getting in the way of what he wants.  In the case of fighting, Valen loves fighting.  And with his lack of empathy he has no issue severely injuring or almost killing someone.  He is not one to show mercy unless he is showing off.  In the end, however, if the person manages to beat Valen by a margin or has a unique quality, his enmity can quickly shift to admiration.  He will change his opinion of them and proceed to add them to his stalking list.  
  
  
• To Enemies: Very few people can go as far as to get on this list for Valen.  This is partially because he doesn't really find anyone who opposes him as equal.  Similar to his foes, he does not tolerate opposition.  The people who end up on this list have usually done something really extreme to grab Valen's attention, but not his affection.  If someone were to somehow make it as far as his enemy list though, he will absolutely loath them.  Valen would show no form of remorse whatsoever and probably wouldn't be against killing the person.  Because of his overconfidence and arrogance he will even try to fight if they are much stronger than him.  The people he deems as enemies he normally hates so much he wont even stalk them. There are exceptions to this, of coarse.  
  

Likes:

• Stalking
  
• Showing off
  
• Dressy clothes
  
• Fighting
  
• The number 3
  
• Sharks
  

Dislikes:

• Uninteresting people
  
• Being alone
  
• Oranges
  
• Fire
  

Valen grew up on the outskirts of a rural town in California to his loving parents Adam and Julia Rhodes.  Valen remembers few details of this time, but he knows this for certain.  One night around the time when he was four years old, Valen awoke to a loud crackling.  Somehow, his house had been set on fire, and at that point the flames were already high.  Valen, panicking, jumped off his bed and ran through his open doors.  The entire house was bathed in flames.  Desperately, Valen called for his mom and dad.  "Valen!" he heard his mother call as she ran through the arc into the kitchen towards Valen directly followed by his father.  Before they could get to him, there was an explosion, most likely from the oven.  

Valen laying belly down on the ground, opened his eyes to see the splintered and searing corpse of his mother.  He tried to move towards her, but felt something heavy on his back holding him down.  A flaming plank had been blown loose during the explosion and fell onto of him.  He desperately continued to claw out from under the plank in an effort to reach his mother, but the smoke got to him and he lost consciousness.  

The next thing Valen remembers is waking up in a hospital, bandaged to the point of looking like a mummy.  Apparently, right after Valen blacked out the firemen had just got inside and managed to rescue him.  His parents were not so lucky.  Based on the reports they both most likely quickly died from the explosion.  There was suspicion of arson, but there was no evidence to prove it so it was marked down as an accident.  Valen's family came to visit Valen and to attend the funeral.

Valen's uncle, and his fathers little brother, William was one of them.  William decided to claim guardianship over Valen and raise him himself.  He told his girlfriend, Liza, and asked her to marry him in order to raise Valen, to which she accepted.  Valen was discharged from the hospital with only one major flaw to speak of, a large scar running from his right shoulder down diagonally to the center of his back.  After visiting his parents graves at the local cemetery, Valen left with his new guardians William and Liza Rhodes to their home in Blackburn.  

Valen was relatively quiet during elementary school which resulted in minor bullying.  Things started to get worse after the kids found out about his scar and things got physical.  When Valen returned home with bruises, William decided he should step up.  Along with being a fairly successful writer, William also taught a self defense class based around stopping, countering, and using enemy attacks against them.  William attempted to drill into Valen to use the skills he would develop to stop but not injure the opposition.  

Valen grew into the art, and after a while, the bullying stopped.  Valen no longer returned home with bruises.  However, his bullies did.  At first he listened to his uncles words, but after a while, things got easier to not worry about injuring them and he found he actually enjoyed fighting and seeing the despaired look on the bullies faces as he used their attacks against them.  This was to Williams dismay of coarse, but as long as their were no major injuries he didn't make a huge fuss.  Liza would make a bit larger of a fuss about Valen's fighting and would reprimand Valen more, but also liked to spoil him the rest of the time.  

As Valen went through middle school and love was a more prevalent topic among both boys and girls, he always felt different from the others.  Whenever they talked about such things, he got confused and didn't understand.  It became difficult for him to talk with others on the subject and usually avoided such conversations.  One day half way through his final year of middle school, a strange conversation arose.  There was word of a local thug called "The Butcher".  Supposedly, even though the guy was even younger than Valen was, he had been taking out high schoolers with little effort.  Ever since starting his uncles training, Valen had never come across someone his age he couldn't handle. He became interested and decided to find this guy.  

Valen went out night after night, avoiding the local thugs if possible and hiding in the shadows, using them as bait to find The Butcher.  After about a week, Valen finally found him.  Two thugs started picking on this lone middle schooler and as soon as they mentioned his pompadour they were met with a bat.  It was over quickly.  The man Valen now knew was The Butcher began to walk away.  It was then that Valen stepped from his hiding place.  Valen introduced himself with much bravado and challenged The Butcher.  

The battle couldn't have lasted more than ten seconds.  The Butcher was so quick, but what Valen did see impressed him beyond belief.  Valen was laying on the ground, dazed.  The Butcher turned and walked away.  Valen sat up on his forearms, staring after the boy.  The Butcher was strong.  Valen could feel something well up inside him as he watched The Butcher walk away.  Valen needed to see him, to watch him defeat more enemies, to display such power.  "It must be that.  So that's what it is.  It has to be."  Valen stood up with a new realization.  "Why didn't anyone tell me that? It was so simple."  Valen began carrying his bruised body home. "That need to see such strength, this must be... love!"

This was the start of Valen's misadventures.  Whenever he would hear about someone strong, he would seek them out, and follow them.  Watching them from the shadows.  It was also then that Valen realized how many strong people were out there.  As a result, he worked even harder with his uncle in his martial arts to become even more powerful.  Even when moving onto and attending Sunset High School this never stopped nor slowed.  His training and stalking was as strong as ever and continues to grow.

Tier: Fighter
Physical Level: 2
HP: 487
GP: 46
Martial Art Name: Rhodes Self Defense
Other Names: The Evolving Art
Description: Rhodes Self Defense is a majorly defensive type martial art.  It puts little emphasis on attacks of its own and instead puts more focus into stopping opponents.  For this reason it is not the best at initiation and is instead better when the opposition makes the first move.  It is, however, very good at fighting both one-on-one and many opponents at once. This fighting style is known as the Evolving Art as none of it's techniques are set in stone and are largely based on the practitioners preference as well as the opponents they are facing.  The style focuses heavily on adapting to both a spontaneous situation and an ever changing fighting world.  It is, therefore, an art that continues to change and adapt as needed.  

Specialties: Grabs, Guards, Counters
Sub-Specialties: Dodging, Adaptability, Acrobatics

History: The style was originally conceived by Eugene Rhodes.  He believed that as the world changes, so should oneself.  Throughout his whole life he learned the ways of various martial arts from around the world with his wife Valentina.  After conglomerating all that he had learned and starting a non-formal self defense school for himself, he continued to adapt and evolve the style with his students which included his single son, Maxwell.  When Eugene died at age 55 Valentina took over.  Valentina personally developed and progressed much of the style and most of what is currently taught was developed by her.  In her old age, she passed her title of Grandmaster along to her son Maxwell.
 
Maxwell continued teaching the art throughout his life.  He is also the current Grandmaster of the art but is nearing the time where he shall transfer the title.  The title was originally going to his eldest son Adam Rhodes, but after his tragic death Maxwell had to find someone else.  Maxwell is currently undecided between his two remaining children and twins William and Alma Rhodes as to who shall take over.  While both are Masters in the art, Alma is a better fighter and practitioner, so it is internally believed she will be the next Grandmaster.  William, however, while falling behind in combat, is noted to be a better teacher and currently runs his own public martial arts school in Blackburn, California.


Stats:

Punching [Solid]: 1
Kicking [Solid]: 1
Throws [Solid]: 1
Grabs [Solid]: 6 [2]
Guards [Solid]: 5 [1]
Counters [Solid]: 5 [1]
Dodging [Solid]: 3 [1]
Adaptability [Abstract]: 3 [1]
Acrobatics [Abstract]: 4 [2]

Stealth [Skill]: 3
Drawing Attention [Skill]: 3

Moves:

Redirection - 3
Martial Art: Rhodes Self Defense
Type: Dodge
Description: A move that reacts to aggressive action by taking attacks such as punches, kicks, or potentially things like sword swings, and altering their trajectory by quickly reacting and pushing or pulling the offensive attack.  This may be performed with hand, arm, leg, etc.

Iron Grip - 3
Martial Art: Rhodes Self Defense
Type: Grab
Description: Takes an opportunity to either go for a grab or reacts to an offensive attack to take hold of something such as a wrist, fist, leg, weapon, etc.  Once caught, object is held tightly and in a way that will not injure oneself.  It is very difficult to break free from this and leaves room for follow up.  

Arm Guard - 3
Martial Art: Rhodes Self Defense
Type: Guard
Description: Moves arms in front of face parallel to each other, knuckles facing up.  Tucks in head and braces against impact and reducing damage to major parts of the body.

Follow Up - 3
Martial Art: Rhodes Self Defense
Type: Counter
Description: Either performs a block or dodge or follows up from a different move to avoid an enemy attack in such a way that puts one in a position vulnerable for the attacker.  Move is then followed up by a grab, trip, push, etc that could throw off balance, take down, or damage the attacker.

Push/Pull - 3
Martial Art: Rhodes Self Defense
Type: Grab + Counter
Description: Makes a grab at a vulnerable opponent or incoming attack.  Upon successful grab, uses unpredictable pushes and pulls to throw target off balance and force a take down or possibly a disarm.