Toni

Toni Cruz is the 11-year old, distant little sister of Antcruz. Somewhat of a child prodigy, she began to study outer space at a young age after becoming fascinated with the concept of the Solar System, and now ranks as one of the elites in her MISST (Miracle Island Space and Science Team) astronomy class, a traveler of the cosmos. She particularly studies the planet Supertree, as other elite members are required to study other different planets or galaxies. While she is rather distant to her older brother, she does frequently get in contact with him and looks up to him, particularly finding his electrical powers and ability to befriend beings from different planets impressive.

Backstory
Toni was born on November 3, 2010, to the same parents as Antcruz, making her their second child and Antcruz’s only sibling. As she was raised in the same original area as Antcruz during her earlier years, she would later accompany her older brother to Miracle Island and start a new life of her own there for similar reasons, although she would part ways with him for the time being as soon as they made it there due to “lifestyle disagreements." Antcruz would still offer her money in order for her to afford a home and a school scholarship, still supporting her decisions despite not being on good terms with her. As she was still at an elementary school-level age at the time, she would end up applying to the MIS Elementary School, and she largely performed well due to her more advanced knowledge in mathematics and especially science. Toni was the best-performing student in her class when it came to the subject of science due to her knowledge of space, a highly relevant topic to her science subject, since she was always fascinated by the concept and spent a lot of time staring at the stars and looking through her telescope as a very young child before moving to Miracle Island. At the end of the school year, Toni’s teacher would suggest her as a student to MISST agents, as the MISST would hold special classes for those who particularly performed well in science and astronomy-themed assignments. When Toni found out that she had been accepted and was offered to become a student there for her middle school years and onward, she became ecstatic. It was around this time when Toni would finally reconcile with Antcruz, who she largely credited for helping her receive her position as a MISST astronomy student, with him helping her earn her elementary school scholarship initially and consequently exposing her to her teacher. This thanks would especially be given more after an occurrence in which Antcruz had to save her from getting submerged in the deep trenches of Supertree’s oceans. Since this reconciliation, Toni would still remain rather distant due to her urgent studies and class participation, though she would still have more of an involvement in her brother’s life.

Personality
Despite being somewhat cocky and immature, Toni is rather smart overall, especially in topics that she specializes in, and enjoys participating in events that involve them. Even when traveling to space, a task which is very risky, she is normally scared, but is still easily determined knowing that the rest of the elite class and her brother are there to help and support her, also showing her support for her colleagues and awareness of their company. However, she does show more resistance to further risky decisions, such as drinking A-Cola; Despite being able to safely consume it due to her perfectly yellow skin, she chooses not to due to health concerns and resistance to fighting. Overall, Toni shows most of the normal traits of a more knowledgeable young child, but as she is beginning to grow up, she is showing more signs of maturity. A trait that Toni shares with her brother is her curiosity about the world and sense of exploration, but she feels this way more towards Supertree than Earth. She typically discusses Earth, particularly Miracle Island, with Antcruz.

Appearance
Toni has the same yellow skin tone as Antcruz, though her hair color seems to have a lighter, slightly browner tone. Her hairstyle is also curly in a similar manner to Antcruz, although the entirety of her hair is curly rather than simply at the top, with some of it being wrapped in a bun at the top and forming strings near her sideburns, which have pearly blue earrings hiding behind them. She has blue eyes with two eyelashes on each one, with one being bigger than the other. Her attire includes a one-piece, baby blue space suit with a brighter blue stripe and the MISST logo plastered on it that looks kind of similar to a onesie; it is complemented by a black and blue helmet when Toni is in outer space, an area with a significant lack of oxygen. Her oxygen tank also has a jetpack built into it.

Antcruz
While Toni has had many disagreements and falling-outs with her brother over the years, she has overall loved him and deeply respected him throughout most of her life. In general, she has a natural brother-sister dynamic with him. Even in situations where they don’t seem to be on good terms, the two are still open to doing what’s best for each other, as exemplified by Antcruz paying for Toni’s school tuitions shortly before they separated. The two are also willing to help each other in danger and use each other as a means of protection. Despite largely feeling happy for her brother’s success, Toni does feel overshadowed by him at times, and because of him, wishes she had more opportunities to protect Supertree rather than simply study it so that she could prove she has strength on the same caliber as him (though this likely wouldn’t end up well if this actually happened.)

Sarah
Upon meeting Sarah, Toni was less than satisfied with her presence, believing her to simply be a replacement since Toni would not live with Antcruz in his apartment. However, after she was told about the events that occurred prior to Sarah moving in, she has largely warmed up to her, to the point where she feels bad for the past assumptions that she made. Toni has grown to respect Sarah, largely for her charisma with Antcruz and her apparent growth as a fighter since the first time she assisted Antcruz in battle. However, Sarah still remains as another reason why Toni remains rather envious towards her brother, feeling like none of her relationships with the rest of the MISST elites are as strong as Antcruz’s relationship with Sarah.

Dash
Out of any of the people in Antcruz’s friend group, Dash is perhaps Toni’s favorite, simply for the fact that his running speed matches that of her speed when flying with her jetpack, making for a good competition. Toni usually wins these competitions, which, in a surprising turn of events, makes Dash the one who is actually envious of Toni. Aside from this, Dash thinks Toni is “cool”, although he largely acts reluctant towards treating her as such because of his soreness as a loser. Despite this, Toni believes that Dash has a good heart but is just bad at showing it. In true “best friend’s little sister” fashion, Toni often picks playful fights with him whenever he is brought to the MISST school, although she doesn’t really mean any harm.

Natalie
Once again, in true “best friend’s little sister” fashion, if there’s anything that young, prepubescent girls love to do, it’s tattling, and that’s no exception when it comes to Natalie’s feelings for Antcruz. Thankfully, Toni’s attempts to confront him about this are usually complemented by a blatant interruption. Outside of this, Toni particularly finds Natalie one of the most impressive fighters of the bunch, specifically referring to her secret stash of stolen bombs; She has also referred to Natalie’s scheme of stealing from Zane to use his own weapons against him as “gangster.” Natalie enjoys Toni’s company as well, finding her to be a very fun person despite some of her immature mannerisms, and enjoys visiting the MISST school often because of her.

Nia
Toni is perhaps the one who is the most emotionally affected by Nia's cuteness; She also cannot seem to get away from her due to the oddity of an extra-terrestrial residing on Earth being the most alien to her, an actual space traveler, especially one who doesn't study Cyansector. Especially considering that she studies a planet which has virtually no life, Nia has largely made Toni wish she had chosen Cyansector as her designated planet.

Trivia
- While Toni is an original character at her core, she is named after and very loosely based on one of my actual sisters in real life.

- Similarly to Aihana, Toni was first conceived in 2019, but did not make her debut as a mainline character until 2021. At the time, she was only a character exclusive to the Antcruz Universe games.

- The decision to make Toni a mainline character was made because I began to become curious about what it would be like if one of Antcruz’s family members was more present and what they would be like as a character.

- Toni’s spacesuit was originally black with a pink stripe rather than the entirely blue pattern. This was changed so that her color scheme could further match Antcruz’s.

- She was also originally supposed to be an ordinary space traveler rather than a MISST student; In fact, MISST was conceived only shortly before she was even revealed.

- If Toni was more open to using A-Cola, it’s likely that she would be able to combine lightning and fire abilities due to the fire emitted from her jetpack.