Arrow Redesign/ Revamp (updated)

EDIT: added bottom of shoe reference and arrow reference because those are important and i forgot them ovo'''

2ND EDIT: I also added the tail and his back quills cause i realized those are important to separate him from a hedgehog character also i changed a few things in his personality/ backstory

I was unsatisfied by his previous design so i made a new one that i think suits him better ovo

PLEASE DO NOT ROLEPLAY AS ARROW! THANK YOU!

Old design here ---> fav.me/d8rox8v

SORRY ABOUT THE LONG BACKSTORY I GOT REALLY CARRIED AWAY

Arrow the Porcupine

Gender: Male

Age: 17

Birthday: October 10th

Weapon: Bow with his Quills as the arrows. He is mediocre at fist fighting.

Powers: None

Romantic partner: None

Romantic Orientation: Biromantic

Sexual orientation: Bisexual

Family Ties:

-Unnamed Father

- Xant: Stepbrother

-Unnamed Stepmother

-Fireside: Stepfather

Personality: Arrow is decisive and quick thinking. He can't hesitate when going into battle, he has to know how many quills he is going to use fighting or else he'll hurt himself by fighting too much and therefore using too many quills off his body. He tends to be greedy and jealous, although he hides it well and is happy and outgoing on the surface. He mostly thinks of himself before deciding to help others, weighing the chances of reward before the lives of the people in danger. He knows how to lie to get what he wants and isn't afraid to use his sharp mind to get him what he wants, even if it puts others in danger. He has many friends and a knack for persuasion, although his friendships tend to be more shallow because he has so many. The only one that he is really close to is his step-brother Xant, who he has been friends with since they first met. Arrow can be envious of people who live better lives than him and his brother, who have a pretty low standard of living. It’s not a huge secret that he holds a lot of hate and contempt for his step father, who ruined his new family and cast him and Xant away.

Backstory:

For as long as he’d been alive, it was just him and his dad.

And he had no problem with that.

It was often just eveningings of them riding bikes together or going to the park or to the beach, things that father and son could do together and have fun. They never really struggled, since his dad only had to pay for himself and him. It was had to imagine a life of struggle.

But… Arrow did see his dad was lonely. At times, he though he wasn’t doing enough as his son to make him happy. For being a kid around 6 he was surprisingly good at reading others and seeing how they felt, despite not having much life experience to tell emotions. He was good at cheering his dad up, but wished there was more he could’ve done to make him truly happy.

He started to attend school. His dad helped him with his homework and grades like any other good father, but there was still that loneliness that Arrow could detect. They never grew apart even though Arrow was in school now and his dad was working his jobs, but Arrow was getting less time with his father than he did when he was younger. He was starting to feel that same loneliness that his father did, and he wished there was a way to fix it. All the friends that he made at school never really filled that space, despite how close he tried to be with other kids.

One day, when Arrow was 9, his father started dating someone. A woman he said. She was very kind and understanding and he would love her and she would love him. It was a little while before he met her, but it was the happiest day of his life when he did. Immediately they took a liking to each other, and to Arrow’s surprise, she had a son of her own. Her son was named Xant. He had to find out from his mother, since he was hiding and avoiding Arrow their whole first meeting. But once Arrow got him to talk, they took an immediate liking to each other as well. It was incredible how fast this family bonded, and even more impressive how quickly it took for Arrow’s father to ask Xant’s mom to marry him.

By the time the two boys were 11, their parents were married and they were officially brothers.The two boys were nearly inseparable after that. They went near everywhere together and when people talked of Arrow, they would often talk of Xant too and vice versa. The rag-tag family spent years together, happy and content with one another.

When Xant turned 13, his powers started to develop and like most kids, he didn’t realize the effect that his powers could have on other people or himself. Him and Arrow were shocked at first, Xant could control heat?! How cool is that! And they went and tested out the young hedgehog’s powers without any sort of restraint. Not once did Arrow think about the kind of destruction that fire could cause and encouraged Xant to burn and test out his powers on anything that he could.

These actions didn’t go unnoticed by the people of the town and the kids were punished, their faces appeared in the city newspaper. Arrow was ashamed of ruining their families reputation, and initially this made him shy for a few months. But with lots of encouragement to become open again from his father and stepmother, he became his normal self again. From then on, him and his brother practiced Xant’s powers inside the house where their parents could monitor them. Of course this led to more than a few house fires, but nothing that burned the whole place down. Just the kitchen.

A year passed, the news of the fires the boys had set died down in the city and they were largely forgotten about except for at school, where they endured the occasional teasing before lashing out at bullies… not with Xant’s powers of course, but with fists, claws, and the occasional painful quill from Arrow’s back. One the way home one evening it was unusually quiet in their neighborhood, but the boys didn’t take notice, they continued on their way like they would any other time. When they approached their house, the faint smell of something disgusting and burnt reached their noses. They exchanged a worried glance and ran to their home, hoping to find an answer to the concerning smell.

They burst in the door to their home, only to find a charred corpse on the floor and their mother beneath the boot of a hedgehog. Xant had seen him before, but Arrow had never seen or felt the pulsing heat and fiery rage of Fireside, Xant’s birth father. Upon seeing the two children Fireside released a deep chuckle, crushing their mother’s head father beneath his boot.

“Is the other kid his?” He motioned with his eyes to the burnt corpse on the ground. It was still smoking. “Did you think that you could start a life that I wasn’t in control of?”

    Before anything else was spoken Arrow lunged at the stranger, the man who murdered his father and was close to killing his stepmother. Easily, Fireside grabbed the 14-year-old by the wrist and covered it in his napalm gel. The smell was like rotten eggs and was overwhelming to Arrow, he gagged on the smell alone, trying to keep quiet. The man’s grip on his wrist was almost deadly, and he could feel his bone getting bruised from the harsh squeezing.

    Xant tried to light him on fire with his own powers, but Fireside was immune. He laughed at his Xant, feeling only more power course through his body at the feeling of the intense heat. Arrow released a high pitched whine of pain from the intense heat Xant was making to try and defeat Fireside. Luckily, the young hedgehog stopped in time to spare Arrow more than a 2nd degree burn. The memory of his entire body being burnt will haunt him for the rest of his years, and remind him that his brother, when he wants to be, is one of the most powerful beings he knows. Fireside laughed at Xant’s efforts and let Arrow go, his frail body falling to the ground beside his stepmother and father as the older hedgehog walked over to Xant. 

    While he could, Arrow looked at the fallen bodies of his two parents. Tears welled up in his eyes as he looked at the barely discernible pile of ashes. There was not one thing left of his father to keep with him as a memento for his memory. Through his blurred vision he looked at  his stepmother, who was now unconscious and crawled over to her body, putting his hand over her chest to feel for a heartbeat and curling up around her to protect her from the imposing heat.

“You belong to me too, so when I return, I expect you and your mother to be waiting for me.”

    That was the last thing he said as he slowly walked out of the house, the smell of napalm fading with him. Xant couldn’t hold back anymore and vomited right then, wiping his mouth off before running to his brother and mother, checking to be sure if they were okay. Arrow could only whimper as his brother touched him.

    Later that night, the remaining three of the family cut their losses and left, leaving their stepfather behind. Arrow wished he could’ve done something more to preserve the memory of his father, but there wasn’t much he could do. He would exist in the hearts and minds of his family, he assumed. Xant and arrow had to drag the body of their mother behind them. She was too weak to walk after being beaten senseless by her ex-husband. They stayed hidden for the woods for a short time before the smell of burning overcame them again. Xant and Arrow looked out from the edge of the forest and saw their city burning and knew they could never go back.

    When their mother recovered, she wanted to move on. Leave. Go somewhere and start again like when this first happened with Xant’s father. The boys were appalled, they didn’t understand. They wanted to chase after this man and get revenge for what he destroyed. Their mother softly disagreed and insisted they come with, to which both boys had to deny her. They left  her side, leaving her alone while they went off to start making their own way, to hope to one day take down Xant’s father and hopefully stop him from ever doing something like that again.

    From then on Arrow took on the alias of Arrow, dropping the name Ezekiel so that no one would recognize him from the town that had been destroyed because of them. He trained himself to be faster and more nimble and to have a mind like a steel trap and razor sharp reflexes. He’s out for revenge more than he’d like to let on, and one day hopes to avenge his father’s untimely death… and maybe one day confront his stepmom about why she was so ready to leave.