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umbramatic · 1 year

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The Umbra Lore Post

OK I did this for Vaespar, one of my other sonas, so I'm going to do a lore thread for what is arguably my main sona, Umbra.

This will have more Meta Context than the Vaespar thread did (there is meta context to Vaespar and I will get to it eventually but it is best saved for... elsewhere) so I'm gonna be starting with said meta context.

To start off... the entity now known as Umbra was once two separate characters.

For the first... I have a story setting I call Multiverse Warriors. It started when I was 12 as a really stupid idea for a fanfic series that essentially crossed Pokemon over with everything else I'm into but slowly evolved into an original fiction superhero-y science fantasy thing.

When it started, I decided to give the Multiverse Warriors, the titular main characters, a boss, simply referred to as The Boss. The Boss was basically me but cooler and sexier, as one does, and gave the Multiverse Warriors their missions. The Boss remained a constant fixture of my mental theater adventures of the Multiverse Warriors.

Cut to the tail end of me being 19. I joined a certain RP called We Are All Pokemon Trainers, or WAAPT for short. I whipped up a character that was by all means unusual (for the time) - an immortal (this was pre-AZ) priest of Giratina who holed himself up on an island for 600 years until finally venturing back into the outside world. As my representative in this RP he was dubbed Umbramatic, or Umbra for short, and he went on many, many adventures with a gaggle of other characters, both my other characters I made for the RP and the characters of my fellow RPers.

(Art by Pikaninja on Deviantart)

These two characters existed alongside each other as entirely different yet vaguely conceptually related entities for years. But then at one point I thought "heh, wouldn't it be funny if The Boss looked like Umbra as sort of a continuity joke" and that was a thing for a while.

But then it got to "hey what if they were the same character just at different points in time" (with the plan being to broad strokes the Pokemon bits in a copyright-friendly way in any "official" Multiverse Warriors material) and that's where things got WEIRD. That decision led to Umbra becoming my sona, an extension and representation of myself - and around the time of that decision was when my idea of who I was was starting to change wildly.

So now let's get into the (current, post-WAAPT stuff is subject to change) in-universe timeline shall we? It starts with the WAAPT stuff.

Umbra was born Joseph Nox on April 10, 1353 (WAAPT uses a Pokemonified pseudo-Gregorian calendar) on Shadedrake Island, an island not far from Hoenn that was settled by Sinnoh natives fleeing calamity long ago. Unbeknownst to him, he had been experimented on before birth, by Giratina cultists that spun off from an ancient civilization of Alakazam and Metagross, and stole a special formula from Nicolas Flamel, who in this continuity happens to be an Infernape. This formula gave Umbra immortality (again this was pre-AZ) that prevented him from dying of old age, disease, and such, as well as the ability to use Obscura (the existing WAAPT Dark/Ghost counterpart to Aura and psychic powers). He did not realize this at first and had a normal childhood with his sister Marie. He grew up to be a high priest of the Giratina religion, gaining the title "Umbramatic," and got some Ghost-type partner Pokemon. Things were going great.

Then a plague struck and every human on the island died except for Umbra.

Umbra still had his Ghost type companions (one of which was the Sableye ghost of his dead sister, who wouldn't be the last literal ghost from his past to haunt him) but after a few years he did what seemed like the wise thing and took said ghost companions and left. He ended up in a land familiar to those who have played the best Pokemon spinoff - Ransei.

In Ransei he worked his way up the ranks of the nation Spectra. While he was doing so, he met a lovely lady named Duolis, who he eventually married.

(Art by Pikaninja on Deviantart)

Eventually he succeeded Nō as the leader of Spectra and became known as The Ghost Lord, after which Giratina loaned him part of their power.

This is where things turned sour.

Umbra quickly grew mad with power. He started to rule Spectra with an iron fist. Soon all knew and feared the name of the Ghost Lord.

(Art by Pikaninja on Deviantart) He got into various shenanigans with the other residents of the new generation of Ransei (read: my fellow RPers in that particular side arc) before someone finally put his reign to an end. That someone was... his girlfriend from the future, transformed into a white Arcanine for a ridiculous Okami homage I am still weirdly proud of all these years later.

We'll get back to her later, obviously.

(Art by Katie Tiedrich)

But even though she gave him an ass beating, despite him turning into a powerful Giratina-Black Kyurem hybrid ghost dragon named Penumbra, she did not in fact kill him, because she did not want to even with the evil overlord phase and also this is a stable time loop. So Umbra, oblivious to the true nature of his assailant, was wracked with guilt over his deeds. He dropped everything, said goodbye to his wife (more on her later), then went right back to Shadedrake Island where he and his Pokemon remained holed up for the next six hundred years.

(Art by Augdgreen on Deviantart)

Eventually, however, (partially due to Giratina pulling a Mufasa) he and his mons mustered up the courage to leave. And that's where things really got started.

He, eventually, found his way to Fortree City. There he met a particular group of Pokemon trainers: the J-Team. They are a group of champion-level vigilante Trainers who go about adventuring together. They promptly did the sensible thing and adopted Umbra and his Pokemon as their own.

From there Umbra had a Wailordload of adventures with the J-Team including but not limited to (take notes kids some of these are important later):

-Gaining a whole bunch of Pokemon friends

-Discovering another immortal named Lina, who was created as his backup by the Giratina cult and was his unseen rival in the Ransei days

(Art by Pikaninja on Deviantart)

-Finding the truth about his Sableye sister

-Finding out the truth about his origins

-Finding a girlfriend named Amaterasu or Ammy for short who can change between human and Volcarona at will

-Getting into a deconstruction of love triangles with Ammy and Lina

-Being the Grumpy of a Seven who is also a Hydregion with false memories and also The Beast in a Kingdom Hearts/Epic Mickey-esqe plot

-Having more of his past confront him vis a Waka-esqe Latios who knew him back then -Dealing with Ammy having a short-lived affair (they make up)

-Dealing with Ammy going back in time and becoming his arch-nemesis as a white Arcanine, thus finding the truth about his past and turning their relationship to enemies to lovers retroactively (they make up)

-Finding out one of his colleagues, Pent, is his and Duolis' descendant

-Finding out one of his friends is the human avatar of the Xerneas-created artifact of power he sought in his Ghost Lord days

-Switching bodies with that friend

-Finding his ex-wife is now a Doublade with her own story and issues

-Coming out as having a crush on ANOTHER archnemesis

-Becoming Luke Skywalker

-Creating a universe with the help of his friends in a ridiculous Homestuck homage (that would become the Yangverse, hence Yangverse!Arceus' human form looking like him)

-Being sent to a dimension where he never stopped being the Ghost Lord, and where he and Lina had a son

-Him and his friends having to be broken out of a different dimension by said son

-Making up with that one archnemesis crush from earlier

-Him and Ammy finally getting married and riding off with their friends into the sunset

That last bit was mostly the end of Umbra's story in WAAPT, as I moved on to focus on other, newer characters.

...But as for his story overall it was only the beginning. Now we enter the post-WAAPT-canon bit which is a transition to... something else.

See, long after the events of WAAPT, bad things start happening for Umbra as the immortality monkey's paw starts curling. Most of his human friends and Pokemon companions alike start dying off one by one of old age or other factors. Even some of his Ghost pokemon passed on for real, their purpose in the mortal realm done.

And then it happened.

After her long Volcarona-demigoddess-based lifespan kept her going for well over a millennium, Ammy finally died of old age.

Umbra, naturally, was devastated. However he was devastated enough to take drastic measures.

See, he had close connections with a WAAPT organization called PEFE, which had a super secret advanced island base. He used their technology to isolate himself to an alternate timeline of the WAAPTverse that had all human and Pokemon life raptured in an unknown incident, and isolated himself in the remains of PEFE there, cutting himself from almost everyone else. The only surviving companion that came with him was Xion the Porygon-Z, and she kind of forced herself along.

Umbra stayed alone with Xion in this facility for a long, long time. Sure, he kept himself busy, like with repairing the facility, but he never actually left. Xion meanwhile had much of her programming altered to the point she wasn't a Porygon-Z or even a Pokemon anymore, and came to be known as X.

Eventually, however, X convinced Umbra to go out just a little. So while he had no intention of ever going back to his home timeline due to all the trauma he did use the multiverse-traveling tech that got him here in the first place to start visiting entirely different timelines.

The timelines and his little vacations to them were varied. Many of them were very different worlds than the Pokemon-based one he had left behind (leading him to discover to his initial shock and horror what "animals" were), though he visited plenty of other Pokemon worlds too. Eventually during these visits, he started opening up again. He started, you know, actually making friends. Some of them even became new lovers, though none filled the hole Ammy left behind.

It was then he met The Shimmerweaver.

The Shimmerweaver is an archfey entity of immense magical power. Umbra met and befriended them in his travels, and they had a fling or two. But while The Shimmerweaver is not malevolent they are mischievous. Prone to fucking around with their powers to see what happens.

So one day, they gave Umbra a "gift," that gift being irradiating him with an obscene amount of fey magic.

After this Umbra found he was no longer a human, but an elf. And not just any old Tolkien-style elf but an elf that was one of the olden fair folk, with all the urges, strengths, and weaknesses. His magical powers expanded widely beyond just his original latent ability to use Obscura, including the ability to shapeshift into other beings via stealing small snippets of their metaphysical identities, but he became vulnerable to silver and prone to dark urges to do awful things to mortals. Also pointy ears and longer hair of course. He could better control his Penumbra dragon form - including making it more anthropomorphic as well -but would also lapse into an eldritch elf form not unlike the Shimmerweaver under pressure.

(Art by Shorah_Art)

But the most pronounced effect this had on Umbra... was the ability for him/her to trans his/her gender.

Umbra was horrified at first. Asked The Shimmerweaver to change him/her back, only to get a "this will be good for you I swear". And. Indeed he/she started getting used to it. In particular started using his/her shapechanging and genderchanging abilities to present and feel euphoria in ways he/she had never before. On one hand it caused him/her to be more ambitious in his/her multiversal adventures. On the other he/she felt the need to keep his/her new nature a secret from most, using his/her powers to make it look like nothing had changed.

And ultimately, even with his/her many multiversal excursions and newfound powers to toy with, aside from the presence of X he/she led a very lonely life at home.

(Art by lilsmolfoxdraws on Twitter)

Then the second shakeup happened.

One morning over his/her morning coffee Umbra found a gaggle of strange children - named Otto, Giselle, Minalli, and Darrin - in one of his lair's modules.

Art by @drrandombear

Said children were child experiments with multiple superpowers, who had escaped their lab via a multiverse-traveling machine. This, however, caused them to crash-land in Umbra's facility. Initially not trusting each other, Umbra nevertheless provided food and shelter for the children. Over time they learned to, in fact, trust each other, aside from Umbra withholding his/her fey, gender-changing, and draconic secrets out of Anxiety, and after a point Umbra had basically adopted the children. Another child named Trina, from yet another universe, eventually joined them as well after one of their adventures, Umbra adopting her as well.

It was Trina's story - being rescued from a race of crystalline demons that gave her strange powers - that gave Umbra an idea.

See, he/she had seen a lot of things across the multiverse. A lot of amazing things, but also a lot of terrible things. Many, many people who for whatever reason needed help.

So he trained the children in rescue, and combat, and deflecting and circumventing disaster. Those children eventually started putting their training into action across the multiverse, saving lives. They referred to Umbra as The Boss. And he/she gave them a name too: The Multiverse Warriors.

They went on many adventures with Umbra, or The Boss, at their command. But will Umbra ever open up to them about his/her secrets? We'll find out eventually.

And here is where we loop back to the meta stuff. Because through all this bullshit, in-universe and out, Umbra has become an extension of my identity. Sure, Umbra's not *literally* me. Sure, Umbra-as-a-character vs. Umbrra-as-a-representation-of-me is kind of fuzzy, and what's canon in that regard is a little messy. But Umbra, *spiritually*, is me... or at least one form of me, along with my other sonas. He/she got me out of my shell with my writing and character development. He/she helped me explore my gender identity. Umbra is very special to who I am as a person... and while I've tried to document as much as his/her story as possible here, it's sure to gain new wrinkles from here on out.

#original character #sona #original fiction #pokemon #rp #lore dump

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