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Terry is known for his bitter, spiky personality. His attitude toward his fellow human beings is one formed of the arrogant opinion that they're collectively stupid to unbearable levels, something that very few people that visit him have ever had much chance at dispelling, given that they do usually need a rather violent proof that their outlook on life is a bit rosy. He's managed not to insult anyone to their faces yet, at least, but ultimately, he'd rather be left alone. That being said, he's not without friends, but he is quite a handful to deal with, even to those he cares about.

His misanthropic outlook is, despite all appearances, not the result of an inherent destructive inclination. In a phrase, he's a bit of a slave to his own opinions and it's unlikely his true sentiments are ever going to surface - he's in his own way. He holds pokémon in high regard and humans much, much less so - and the more he observes mankind interacting with pokémon, the more he resents his own species, all the while feeling quite powerless to change the situation. His fondest wish would be for the gym circuit to be dissolved and its efforts to culminate in something of a (violent) revolution, instead, a radical rewriting of Sehto culture from the ground up to eliminate the abuse inherent to it.

He rationalises his own position in the circuit as a necessary evil - a way to, hopefully, if all works out, wake up the respective idiots putting their pokémon through the circuit. The fact he does serve as an effective deterrent for about 75% of circuiters certainly doesn't do anything to dampen the cruelty of his methods.

He deeply dislikes the current gym circuit setup for its perceived passivity… and for some of the people who are a part of it, Keith Sirius first and foremost, Jagdish Tsukinaka second. That he's a part of it intimidates him - he's not sure how he got there, even if he can retrace all the steps in his head and they all check out as sane. He does know being a gym leader gives him about as much power to change the status quo as he could hope for as an individual human being, but given Nahla City's population flux, he finds himself more frustrated at the chore than not (rather than seeing it as the opportunity to reach a wide audience as he could be doing), as he rarely sees the 'fruits of his labour'.

Terry has a begrudging respect for Jagdish Tsukinaka and the other gymleaders, but he can't be called an enthused supporter. He's certainly loyal, but it's a loyalty born less out of some fundamental belief in the goodness of it all, and more out of his decision that they're simply… less stupid people than average. The fact they could replace him in a heartbeat certainly helps - but while he's certainly intimidated by Jagdish and his ilk when they're exhibiting frightening behaviour, it's nothing that tends to weigh on him. He avoids dealing with Jagdish and Keith personally if at all possible, though, since as far as he's concerned, they always exhibit 'frightening behaviour'.

Ordered roughly from positive to negative, Terry…

• …feels pokémon deserve much better treatment than they tend to receive.
• …is quite fond of Rose Kaiki as, to his perception, she's the only gym leader whom can think of no criticism of beyond his token passivity complaint (that he doesn't directly hold against anyone but Jagdish, since Terry himself cannot claim more activity either).
• …has the mildest protective streak toward Dakarai N'Sehla, since Dakarai reminds him of his own dealings with the gym circuit, and occasionally tries to convince the boy to stop being a slave. He's certainly shouted at him over it before, but obviously gotten nowhere with that.
• …is wholly neutral toward human beings that do not own pokémon.
• …strongly dislikes his fellow human beings providing they deal with pokémon at all - he's never seen a human-pokémon relationship that wasn't at least a bit controlling, and he has a zero tolerance policy about it. (He does include himself in that, his position just makes it difficult not to deal with pokémon in that fashion, and he's bitterly accepted it in himself, but he's far removed from proud about it.)
• …loathes Jagdish Tsukinaka, both for his attitude and thanks to his personal dealings with him. He blames much of the state of Sehto on the Arbiter, since as far as he's gathered by now, he would have the power to change everything about the Sehto culture, but refuses to act.
• …loathes battle-prone pokémon trainers as an example of the worst human-pokémon interactions that are possible. This hatred fuels much of his visible gym circuit related gym leader personality.
• …is a declared enemy of Keith Sirius, (rightly) believing him to be a psychopath and (perhaps not so rightly) believing he should never have been given the position of power he has (something he certainly holds against Jagdish, in turn). Thanks to his personal dealings with Keith, he would quite literally kill the man if you put the two of them into the same room, since he won't tolerate Keith being any closer to him than twenty metres distance for any reason.

Terry polices Nahla City diligently and can be considered something of a sheriff in the frontier-like settlement, but his heart is not with the job. He's a dreamer about getting other things done with his position and nearly constantly frustrated at the limits of it, making him a rather harsh and unforgiving leader, but is not known for excessive unfairness - he may err on the side of punishment, but it's not a wide error margin. He has a good head on his shoulders and is very evidence-based.

Terry's influence goes much further than he realises. For one, he's discouraged many people from continuing the gym circuit and encouraged even more to treat their pokémon with more respect - they're just usually not permanent Nahla inhabitants. The permanent residents of Nahla City both respect and fear him, knowing that they don't want to have to see him - since if he's involved, someone is bound to be hurt, and it might be them. In that, he has something of a mythological angelic air: He's a harbinger of a destruction validated by justice.

Terry insists on spontaneous, freeform, standard rules, granting him the ability to literally crush his opponents - which he certainly does. He doesn't advertise the effect of the rules much anymore, suffering something of a certain ennui about it, but when he started in his role as gym leader, he frequently gave the trainers that came to him about a circuit battle an essay about how he won't go easy on their pokémon. Since that never discouraged anyone before the fact, he's just stopped bothering and let his actions speak louder than words.

Terry's history is quite uninteresting up until his initial time in Taqnateh. He was born in southern Nightclaw and grew up there, only to end up migrating to western Nightclaw following a promotion at his work. When the company employing him folded, he had a comfortable financial buffer for himself and, having immigrant friends at this point, felt a certain draw to the gym circuit.

He was not prepared for Taqnateh, of course. To call it a turning point in his life might be an understatement. He's done the best possible job he can at blocking out the memories of what happened to him, but occasionally, details do manage to resurface. Each time that happens, it tips off a fresh bout of rage at the circumstances - he does not feel that, despite his transgressions against pokémon, he deserved any of his treatment, since he's a firm believer in restitutive and not retributive justice and the set-up sits wrong with him on a principle.

After Taqnateh and his survival, he spent a few years trying to figure out what to do about his newfound empathy for pokémon, ultimately deciding that everything he tried fell short, since it wasn't changing anything fundamental.

Not violently inclined by his lonesome, Terry at first resigned to this notion and began to travel the circuit again, this time to offer his service to the gym leaders, beginning with Yarver Bakema and travelling clockwise around Sehto, avoiding Taqnateh in the process. He didn't get far, since he told Yarver he was going to travel to Ehqaj to speak to Rose, resulting in her being 'forewarned' - and deciding to report the strange behaviour to Jagdish, wondering if it was perhaps something he'd asked of Terry. Jagdish, not having been informed about Terry's plan, spoke to him on his way to Pyu Ivvi. Terry… tried to ignore Jagdish, hoping desperately that either he was just a hallucination or he was going to go away if he was granted no reaction. It didn't work. Instead, he snapped at him, ranting about how the whole circuit setup wasn't getting its supposed job done, how people were going to continue hurting pokémon, and to please leave him alone while he was trying to get some atonement in (also, to please stop being quite as creepy). Jagdish, fed up with Terry's uncooperative attitude, whisked him up to Taqnateh, locked him into a cell, and went to speak with Yarver and Rose about what, exactly, they had to report, in as much detail as they could muster.

Needless to say, Terry did not deal well with even just the notion of being trapped up in Taqnateh again and very nearly literally clawed at the walls. Meanwhile, Yarver and Rose had only good things to say about Terry (Terry had expressly asked for tasks that would help improve pokémon life in the area - he'd patched up the shore fencing around Rose's gym that provided a safe haven for tame water pokémon, for example), and despite their personal dealings, Jagdish felt inclined to consider Terry as a gym leader, since he seemed to have his heart in the right place. As such, he returned to Taqnateh to talk to Terry about it, assessing him a misanthropist and thus only suitable for Nahla City, trying to convince Terry that if he wanted to do some good for pokémon, that was bound to put him in the best possible position to do so. He did, however, line out the conditions of gym leadership, including, most notably, not mentioning the circuit's inevitable end. With some convincing, Terry accepted, perhaps in very slight part coloured by the urge to get away from Taqnateh and Jagdish on short notice, but largely considering it the best of his possible options.

Jagdish told him to continue what he'd been doing and that it was customary for gym leaders to circle Sehto to get to know each other gym leader personally, and to, once he was done with that, apprentice under the current Nahla City gym leader for a year before actually taking it over, since Nahla's unique population situation gave it quite a few idiosyncracies worth gradually learning from an expert.

It's on this run that Terry got to know Keith. Keith had been entirely absent from his gym circuit run as a pokémon trainer, so there was no warning whatsoever about his personality. Needless to say, it didn't work well - it terrified Terry to the bone and he did not appreciate Keith's attempts to laugh it off even slightly. If Keith hadn't been the last stop on his gym leader hazing trek, he would have stopped the run there and then and gone back to simply stewing about his powerless situation in a corner. As it was, it concluded the matter and he's holed up in Nahla City ever since.

…

• Tod (Sudowoodo)
• Zerstörung (Golem)
• Vergeltung (Donphan)
• Schicksal (Kabutops)
• Fügung (Sandslash)
• Gnade (Marowak)

Collected from Arsaga:

The very first knock is answered by the door getting torn open - Marcus' hand raised to continue its assault on the door, but instead batting somewhat uselessly at the air infront of Terry Kiran. Only the sound of dripping water slowly trickling down the sides of the chasm and soaking into the moist earth can be heard for long moments… as though Terry were silently demanding what amateurs are doing in his gym, standing in the doorway with his legs spread slightly, a soft orange glow coming from somewhere in his home, outlining his shape. He's shorter than average, and fairly average in build, it seems, though his expression reveals a confidence that runs deep. A slow blink, finally breaking the silence, cutting right across Devi who was about to ask for a gym battle. “You're here to fight me.” It's a statement, perhaps with a touch of scorn.

Terry's gaze drifts across those present, still standing in the doorway, gaze coming to rest on Nikki as though asking some unspoken question, then shrugging, his fingers sliding from the doorframe. “I'm rather busy right now, so in parallel will have to do,” he says, casually. “You,” he points to Devi. “One pokémon. And you,” he points to Nikki. “Also one pokémon. And you, sir,” he points at Marcus, evidently resisting the urge to poke at his chest in the process. “One pokémon. Against three of mine. Items are allowed, any and all types… blah, blah, blah.” A slight eyeroll, the twitch of his nose, and he looks back at Nikki, arching a slight brow, then shaking his head and glancing nowhere in particular. “Those are my rules.”