Appearance: The most significant feature most ponies notice about Dec on a first glance is his height. He’s tall, having about a foot on the average pony, mostly in his long, skinny legs to match his long, skinny body. His colors are also rather pronounced, a deep green shade for most of his body with lighter green mottles across his body and dark brown for his hair and hooves, which are not covered by fur. He is always wearing a pair of thick, round glasses that he needs to see, carefully fitted and given light enchantments so that they don’t fall off his face in extreme scenarios. Other than that, he’s usually wearing a light brown, button up t-shirt with a darker brown tie to match. When the weather gets bad, he’ll also wear a heavy, dark green coat that hangs loosely about him and is a bit too big for him. His expression is usually neutral, especially at work, but when he does emote, it’s usually dramatic and pronounced.
Cutie Mark: A set of glasses with attached and accompanying frames. On the surface, these represent analysis and an ability to understand things. For a deeper meaning, the cutie mark also refers to an ability to focus and refocus on the facets that are important and unimportant.
Distribution of Magic: Although he is an earth pony, Decision Tree has very little of the connection to land or nature that most others of his race have. As a result, it was very hard for him to grow anything at all, or to feel the nature around him. However, this did come with the benefit of the other portions of Decision Tree’s magic being a cut above average. He tends to be much sturdier than the average pony and has great ability to draw energy from the ground below him, allowing him to stay energized for a lot longer than most. However, he cannot draw as much energy as an earth pony who has grown attached to their land, making it a bit of a trade-off in total.
Background: Decision Tree was born in the relatively small burg of Flagstallion, to a family of loggers who were well known for both the quality and quantity of their word and also a deep spiritual connection to the forest as a whole. Decision was the second child out of 7, but business and the government were enough to keep the family in relative prosperity despite the large amount of expenses they faced on a day-to-day basis. For this reason, Dec garnered a great appreciation for the government and decided he wanted to help them out, because for all their flaws they did a whole lot of good.
When he was the rough equivalent of 8 or 9, an argument on the school-grounds spawned a fight with one of his classmates, a rather bulky pegasus student. During the fight, Decision Tree was having a rather rough time of it, the size and speed of his opponent throwing him off. However, by staying in the fight long enough, Dec was able to hang in the fight long enough to identify patterns in his opponent’s attacks and managed to end up winning the fight. Although he got in big trouble for the fight, Decision Tree earned his cutie mark, the careful analysis of his opponent realizing what his destiny was.
At this point, his family was mildly concerned. First of all, they had lost who they had suspected to be the person who would take over the logging company, and they weren’t sure if Decision Tree’s talent was exclusively fighting. There was a threatening of a falling out, but after a couple of year, the realization of his talent as a more general analysis, and the emergence of Dec’s brother, Oak Tree, as the perfect candidate for the lumber business eased the tensions within the family.
At this point, about 14 or 15, Decision Tree opted to begin to train to become a police officer. From there he spent a lot of time in the school, going through the basic training. The relatively scarce law enforcement of Equestria demanded an elite force rather than a vast one, so a great deal of training was necessary. Physical, mental, magical: all were pushed to the limit. Though he struggled through some areas and breezed through others, Dec was able to keep himself focused and push through to complete the training, finally becoming a police officer. At age 18, he joined the Flagstallion police force. This was just the beginning, for him, though. He continued to study and push himself to work harder and do better, knowing that he had more potential. After four more years of devoted study, he rose to the rank of Investigator at age 22.
At this point a stroke of good fortune came his way: the Flagstallion drug trade. Although the mountainous town had always had a bit of a problem with it, the sudden economic prosperity from the return of Luna caused it to absolutely skyrocket one year, pushing it through. The biggest problem was the nebulous nature: each individual dealer was detached and could be isolated, but it wouldn’t affect the group as a whole in the slightest. Decision made the choice to correct this, and so he started to pull out charts and numbers, pouring hours and hours of work into his analysis and study. His reputation began to dip, people began to become concerned for him. Until he started to order that raids.
It started off once a month. Pretty soon the raids were being handled weekly, until eventually, Dec mustered the entire police force, running a raid every single day. It would have been seen as a travesty, except that every single raid was a success. Drug shipments were seized, dealers were seized by the dozen, the cartel members were arrested, and evidence for farmers was secured to shut down the drug farms in other locations. In total, after about one year, the drug trade was all but erased from Flagstallion, with only a few isolated vendors left.
This elevated him to the status of “local hero” (thanks to a relatively benign police chief who actually gave him the credit), and caught the attention of the Royal Guard. From there, he was selected to be part of a more elite squadron known as the Untouchables. He was one of several hundred candidates and was ultimately selected for his specific talent and the role he could play within the program, as well as his performance. From there, he was preened and trained to near perfection to become the sixth Untouchable.
