User:Trocyte V./Ash Kuroshima

"Heh. Maybe you are right, Aerios. I was a villain, through and through, when I started hunting you, trying to bend the world to my will. But to be the adult in the room, things change! Unlike you, I took the time to know Tyra - and everyone else here - for who they really were, after you so bitterly threw her away when she didn't agree with your idea of who she is. That's what I truly hate about you. You never cared about compassion, deep down! All you wanted to do was build more weapons, get more girls, and look like some badass in the process!... And yet I'm just an envious coward? No! I know full well underneath all that masking is a petulant manchild that can't even understand he's been used this whole time! I can barely say "something isn't right" to your face without you melting down as if you haven't been living a life of undeserved spoils! AERIOS! YOU! ARE! A! COWARD!"

- Ash, before battling Aerios for the last time Ash Kuroshima is a character appearing in Plants vs. Zombies: Infinite Generation and a lieutenant of the Kleptoplastic Rebellion.

A former villain who once held a delusion of grandeur that he could plunge the world into darkness, Ash eventually came to his senses after witnessing his rival Aerios turn to the path of genuine evil and now resolves to stop him by any means, using a stolen Hazard Trigger and a Delta Kai to bring PHASMA the destruction they crave.

Origins
Like all of the other members of the KPR, Ash's last name is derived from a real-life kleptoplastic creature, specifically the Costasiella kuroshimae, a type of sea slug with a distinct mane filled with chloroplasts, giving the appearance of green energy flaring out from its body.

While not a direct basis, Ash's Infinite Robot takes design cues from Kamen Rider Cross-Z and Kamen Rider Calibur Jaoh Dragon, and the unique, game-original mechanism for the Hazard Trigger's use is intentionally similar to the Delta Gear.

Personality
Before the rise of PHASMA, Ash was a narcissistic, possessive man, only obssessed with having the approval of what was once LEAF and frothing with envy at watching Aerios rise through the ranks with seemingly none of the effort he or anyone else put in. He soon turned to nihilism, believing that nothing he or anyone like him did mattered if people like Aerios could take it all away, and used that to justify his next plan: casting a shadow over the world he used to love.

After watching LEAF undergo the horrific merger with GRAVES and seeing Aerios, now being used by what he thought was a harem, agree with the new organization's atrocities so easily, Ash's look on the world changed. He no longer desired to go through with his original plans out of evil, but rather instead to put Aerios out of his misery - and tear through those that strung the feud between two of them along, one by one. While he admits that this is not necessarily a noble cause, seeing the other members of the KPR and later the other universes battle PHASMA convinced him that unlike that horrible organization, his ends justified his means, and only reinforced his resolve to fight.

Delta Kai type.HZD
Ash uses a Delta Kai painted black and cyan in combat, preferring to fly fast and strike from afar with high-calibur ranged shots before closing in and fully disabling or destroying the target with a melee attack. It carries a single DMR, two sabers, and two high-power funnels by default.

As Ash lacks the psychic aptitude required to use funnels despite years of training and live combat experience, he must activate NITRO to deploy the Delta Kai's funnels. When active, all of the vents on the Delta Kai spew blue soulfire, which is hot enough to burn other Infinite Robots. Since Ash is already a very aggressive individual on the battlefield, the negative, mind-altering effects of the system are severely weakened when used by him.

Similarly, the Hazard Trigger can be used to awaken the true form of Ash's Delta Kai once inserted into the holster, causing it to take on a more jagged appearance and boosting its otherwise-average performance statistics. The hands also notably gain a set of sharpened fingernails akin to a dragon's talons that make it easier to rip apart most forms of non-Phase Shift armor.