Nayeli "Rio" De la Cruz

NAYELI "RIO" DE LA CRUZ

I USED TO TRUST THE MEDIA TO TELL ME THE TRUTH

Rio was born of parents from two different signs. Her mother, a woman from Leo, Cassandra, was staying in Aries to oversee a project, when she met Rio’s father, a construction worker in Aries. The two had a fling, and left Cass pregnant with a baby girl which she didn’t want. By the time she had found out, it was too late for her to legally have an abortion, so she ended up giving the child up to Rio’s father, in Aries, who had forgotten all about her at that moment, and had moved on to another woman, who he would call his wife three years later. Born in Leo as Nayeli Castellano, she was raised in Aries as Rio De la Cruz, abandoning her mother's surname in favor of her fathers for legal purposes, which did put her under government notification at a young age due to her mixed-signed heritage.

Rio was the oldest of the family, and even though she was conceived from another woman, she was always treated as family in the De la Cruz home. She would later have two twin brothers, Rick and Damian. Rio was a tomboy as a child, and throughout much of her life for that matter. She never really fit in with the girls, and was a wrestler, with a thicker skin than the boys too. She would rough house, and she didn’t take shit from anybody. If you thought it was okay to mess with her, you’d be feeling her fist in your gut before you could have finished your sentence. She was constantly under disciplinary action from the school for her rowdy and more importantly, disobedient behavior, something that was very much frowned upon in the Stelisius society, with rebellion being just as much a taboo as disobedience. She always questioned the system, and desired an answer that was more than ‘everyone has their place, and yours is not at the top’.

She was never really a great student either, she had always gotten average grades, just above passing, so she could work to support her family. Her step-mother was a waitress, and her father worked in construction, for the city. Between the two of them, there wasn’t a lot of money to support the family, so at age 14, she got a job at the quarry. After school, she would spend until ten o’clock lifting stones from where they were pulled, as well as moving them around. She was fit well for the job too, as she was always physically strong and capable, which came from her years of training and fighting on the streets against anyone who messed with her. A couple rocks or two in a wagon was no problem for her.

She had been working in the Quarry for four years when on the day of the Summer Solstice, she left Aries for the day of Selection at the Celesadonus. However, instead of leaving pursue her life in either Aries, or another signs realm, she was denied access to all 12 of the signs. The sole reason was because they feared her lack of obedience and power over people could inspire them to fight back, to rise up against the government and raise hell for freedom from the tyranny of Stelisius. So, they sent her away to the prison compound in the North, Ophiuchus.

It was rough, very rough. Her first day, she picked a fight with a girl stronger than her, who ran the place, Adri, who beat her to a pulp. That only inspired her more to become stronger. The government sent her here to die, and she was going against all the odds merely by living, staying alive. It wasn’t fate, but willpower that kept her kicking, not for a hope of a better future, but the determination to better herself.

Two months into her time in the Ophiuchus Compound, and that was when she met Mathias, from Leo. Mathias had seen potential in her, and trusted her enough to confide in her a plan for escape he had been working on during his stay for five years, currently the longest anyone had ever lived in Ophiuchus consecutively. He took her through the vents, showing her the dark secrets of the compound. What went on there was massacre, a bloody remnant of what was meant to weed the weak or the undesirable from society. She had no idea, she, the rest of the world, were kept in the dark about it all, and she knew there needed to be change.

She and Mathias escaped, riding a bullet train of goods to Libra, where they met Josh Fletcher and Laurel Greystone, Laurel being from Virgo. Rio bargained them with shelter, and the four of them had a discussion, one of the topics being Laurel’s defection from the government. Rio placed herself in the leadership position of the newfound Insurgency, with Josh as her second command, and Laurel being her spy, as she was a worker for the Stelisius government, and held close ties with the Aldenberg family. This new group, the Insurgency, they couldn’t just stand and be idle, they needed to eliminate the root of these corruption, the root of these problems, and expose the world to the treachery of the government. They needed to take out the one behind it all, Elise Aldenberg.

By then, it was the Winter Solstice. With a concealed shotgun in her coat, Rio made her way into the crowd, to watch Elise’s annual speech, or rather, propaganda. Towards the end, there was a single shot, a single shot that ended Elise’s life, before Mathias cut into footage the quartet had composed, first hand evidence of the crimes the government had committed. Bloodstains to prove it all. The only thing they needed for change to happen were supporters, and their numbers were growing by the minute.

Rio fled before any trace of her was recalled, save for a single shot of the back of her hair in a curly low ponytail in the back of the auditorium, the most wanted face in the world, the leader of rebellion and insurgency. She is Rio De la Cruz, and she is not going anywhere anytime soon, and neither are her supporters, the Insurgency, which has grown far more than the original 4 members.



VIVE LA REVOLUTION!

FACECLAIM as character name