A lithe little thing, Callie is tiny compared to other Type:Null. He is a full two feet shorter than most of his counterparts. He is also very slender, to the point that his bones stick out at sharp angles; be this from design or malnutrition is hard to tell. The claws on his front paws are also longer and thinner than the average, meant for slicing and killing. They are unwieldy when he isn't careful how he walks, making him clumsy or even leading to him scraping himself often. There is a deep and noticeable scar on the juncture of his hind right leg. While long healed over, it causes a very noticeable limp and slows him down altogether. Aside from those larger defects, his body is littered with multiple smaller scars and signs of violence. Even if he does not hold the most imposing figure, it is clear he has been through a lot.

Since many fear Null and Callie is so reclusive, there are few who know what he is really like. If you asked the people of his past, they would say he is distant and violent; a creature that is a reflection of what he was built for years ago. Those who come to him for treatment say he is cold and shrewd. Neither of these assessments are true, at least not fully.

Callie is a pokemon who had an illusion of happiness. Where he is at in life, he is content with. Since he has never known anything better than that, he believes this to be happiness. It is not, even if he does not know it. Callie is a lonely individual of his own doing, since he is more afraid than he realizes to reach out. There is something bitter that sits in his chest that he does not recognize as a craving for more from life.

Those pokemon who say he is violent have missed the mark by more than ten years. Those who say he is cold do not realize he is doing his best with what he has. Callie was always the socially awkward type, not knowing the proper way to respond to things or how they made people feel. He is doing better, better than when he was overconfident and thirsting for blood years ago. It is not his fault that social etiquette was never a skill offered for him to learn.

A darkness in his mind eats him up inside even if Callie does not know it. Tendrils of depression that makes him 'lazy' and saps him of energy and willpower. Sometimes it drives him to the point of craving that eternal sleep, and he has been on the precipice of more than one cliffside wondering if he should take those last few steps. He has always turned away, disgusted with himself and feeling hollow inside, but the temptation is still there.

Callie is stagnating slowly. He needs change in his life and he doesn't realize it. He needs someone to be there for him even if he denies it to his deepest self. He has never been given and chance to truly, truly live in this world and he needs to be offered that chance before he can turn his life around. Running away from him problems and into a forest will not make them go away.

Sometimes in the night, Callie will wake up in a cold sweat. The ghost of past pains he cannot remember receiving still stinging his skin, sparks crackling in his ears from long distant shocks. Those nights are hard. He cannot recall what it was that hurt him that way, or what they did to do it. He is not sure he wants to.

What Callie does know is itemized in little boxes in his mind. He can go down it like a checklist. This information is not something he learned until years later, when the Null were freed, when he was sane enough to be counciled. He remembers it as a checklist because the Audino nurse who cared for him in those early months would repeat it ever morning.

"You are CA11A, you were an experiment, you're free now, you did bad things and that's okay; you can change now."

That was the short of it. In detail, Callie was one of the latest creations for the advancement of Type:Null. Living things were greedy, and why stop at the perfect killing machine when you could make it better? He was C Class, more compact and faster than the other Null, if lacking in the physical punch and endurance. Made for stealth and swift kills, an assassin built for quick (but not painless) murder of all who opposed him.

It was hard to make this new class of Null, hard to keep them alive. Callie was one of only a handful who survived past being given life, one of even fewer who survived the days of 'mental reconstruction' to ensure obedience.

Callie does not remember the 'mental reconstruction'. He thinks that is why he wakes up at night. He does, however, remember the bloodshed. The 'bad things' that nurse would tell him about every day.

It's not a subject that Callie likes to dwell on. He was not alive for long before the fall of the labs thanks to the Delcatty, but that was enough time. The rise and fall of nations were at his clawtips, targets ripped to shreds, poisoned or worse. He was an angel of death, relishing in the killing for it was all he knew. The instabilities in mind were rewarded instead of quelled. He does not speak of what he's done, not to anyone who doesn't need to know, but he now regrets every slice of claw through flesh.

The fall was not pretty for those involved in his creation. They tried to shut him and his 'siblings' up, turn on them to save their own hides. When the hands that fed then slapped, they bit back; taught too well not to go down without a fight. Not all escaped, but those that did (like him) fell into the waiting hands of 'rehabilitation' of 'second chances' of 'hope and peace'. Callie did not believe in second chances.

He was, back then, too unhinged. Too traumatized by what he had lived through. One day, when that nice nurse let her guard down, months or maybe years after he was dragged in to learn to be a civilized pokemon, he sliced her arm off her body. An accident, it was an accident, but she was just too easy and something about her reminded him of something he couldn't bring to mind.

Wild and dangerous and terrible, but they were relentless. He would be Good and he didn't have a choice. He wasn't sure when the turning point was, when he went from being Bad to Good, but one day he was released and five years had gone by and he was suddenly All Better. Callie did not feel different. He did not feel anything at all.

But he played nice, even if those around him did not. "Broken" some would say, "Unable to Love" was from others. Children were ushered away from him and pokemon crossed streets and avoided eye contact. It was hard. Callie hated it. He did it anyway.

An offer to put his talents to use was extended. Join the military. He took it almost eagerly, hoping for a taste of something nostalgic. He did as he was told like he did years before and he was happy to do it. Something nagged at him, though, and it was constant even if he pushed it to the back of his mind.

Then there was the incident, caused by that nagging. In time Callie rose through the lines as an efficient solo military pokemon, respected (or at least tolerated) by his superiors; the grudging acceptance and even fear of his equals. The slice happened deep in a dungeon, a Zangoose. Driven wild by the need to protect her children (not that he knew that when he took the mission) she attacked ruthlessly. It was something he was accustomed to, he had full intent to slice her down and bring her in, but then he caught the glimpse of the crying and cowering children hiding behind a rock and his heart clenched. The nagging thought bloomed in his chest and he lost focus, she sliced his back leg and crippled him.

It was regret, and it was sorrow, and it was all the emotions he had been forced to lock away. Mostly it was also empathy and understanding. Even if it hurt and Callie lay bleeding there, he now knew what he had been missing. He cried, after the Zangoose and her children were gone. Long and deep and hard before he could drag himself out of there. He cried for everyone he had ever wronged, he cried for the others he was born with, he cried for himself. It was an emotional cleansing.

Callie was in no shape to fight anymore. He couldn't, with his leg in the shape it was. At least, not like he had been. He also wasn't sure he had the stomach for it. His discharge from service was more like a quiet mewl than the great roar many thought it would be. It wasn't as hard letting go as he had worried.

Healing took time, but at least Callie had savings. It burned through faster than he would have liked, so eventually he found himself on the street with just a few gp to his name. He wandered, aimless, and slowly starved until his mind and body couldn't take it anymore. Callie couldn't stand to be in the city any longer, he needed to be away and free in a way he couldn't explain. He picked a direction and walked and walked and walked. The city was past him and he was away. He was alone.

The forest was close enough to the city that if Callie really needed supplies, he could get them. It was far enough away that many pokemon avoided coming this deep in fear of ferals or getting lost. It became a sort of paradise for him, even if he only scratched by by eating what he could find.

The first winter was hard, but he persisted by sheer will alone. Callie thought he might have been fifteen by this point; it was hard to keep track of things like birthdays. But he made a home, slowly, building up a nice and spacious hut for himself. It took time to learn the skills needed, but he did, and with minimal injury.

Callie took up the hobby of plants, growing plants and flowers in the space around his makeshift home. He learned what could be eaten and what couldn't quickly; how to use his claws to make pastes for cuts and fevers and bruises was slow work. It was a lot of trial and error. It was a lot of self reflection.

While Callie did not spend his days getting fat, he did spend his days getting lazy. At least, that's what he called in. It was hard to move some days, hard to make himself eat. No motivation even if he had things to do. Many times, he wondered if the effort was worth it. If he really was able to love. If he should just give up and cease to exist.

Then the first pokemon started coming to him, and Callie was twenty at this time, but rumors were abound about a witch living deep in the forest. They did not like him, they did not trust him, but they discovered his talents with making polices and potions to heal wounds. "Magic" some would say, even thought it wasn't. "Better and cheaper than that stupid doctor!" Said some others, but he didn't believe that was true. They came to him for what he could do if they were desperate enough. He did what he could in exchange for provisions.

Life is still hard and life is still difficult. Even as pokemon come and go, seeking help and advice, Callie feels as though he has remained the same. He has weakened, he knows, from what he could once do. He is still hanging on some days, unable to move or think or do anything but sit in his glum moods, but he is... happy. A tentative happiness. Restless in some places, but happy.