Val

Val is a former mercenary and an ex-convict from the lower class with the ability to specialize in earthbending skills (Geokinesis). He has the appearance and personality of a cynical lone wolf. He has no patriotism. He is marked by indifference to the fact he cannot form such lasting personal connections, his outward bravado and tough demeanor serving as both armor and a self-imposed barrier. At the outset, his mother left him in the slums when he was a child. Henceforth, he made a living as a bandit. One time, he lured unsuspecting knights by planning an ambush. However, his luck ran out when he targeted the Captain of the Knights, Roderick, leading to his capture by Pride herself. Left imprisoned and facing execution by the Royal Family for leading a siege that took Anemonian Knights as hostages and also trapped their knights in the battle. Therefore, he calls Pride a 'Monster' for witnessing Pride’s monstrous combat prowess as she decimated most of his crew. He endured a grueling ordeal before being forced into signing a servitude contract by offering Val a choice to live. Pride initiates a command where she will speak out her premonition on those future-based warnings to Val, as these main orders are— to protect her sister Tiara no matter what happens and he will return to her, asking for help once if he is ever in a desperate situation. Val's resistance is met with confusion rather than anger before sending him home, since Val has been neutralized as a threat due to the servitude contract restraining him from doing illegal activities specifically to penalize him for his past actions. In Val's ominous past, he was actively working through various underground operations like human trafficking when he wasn’t under a binding contract during his self-preservation. While in his original timeline, he is meant to work with Pride as her subordinate to track down Tiara. Clearly, the moment that he is bound by that contract, his priorities shift. Everything changes when two homeless children follow him into his daily routine, looking for a guardian. As he gradually adjusts to a difficult new life, Val takes them in and names them, accepting an unexpected parental role that reforms him as he becomes closer to the kids in later years. He might be driven to protect those he secretly cared for. Val returns to his master but finds himself powerless. Ultimately, he is forced to seek help from Pride to rescue those children who got kidnapped and might be sold into slavery, which Val reluctantly agrees to assist. But now, he is no longer defined by who he once was after Pride gave meaning to his pivoted emotions. He can't quite put his feelings into words, but he now carries himself with the quiet resolve of a man who at last has something to protect because he has realized what it means to care and to have a family, something he had previously disregarded as a lonely man whose only goal was solely on survival. After rescuing those children and people from human traffickers. Val remains to work with Pride's orders under the status of a deliveryman and acts as a guardian for those children he adopted to let them stay beside him.