TV-Series
Description
Padre Tres, whose full name is Hercules Tres Iqus and whose serial designation is HC-IIIX, is a combat agent attached to the AX division of the Vatican. He appears as a young man with brown hair, brown eyes, and a neat, short hairstyle, and he has a doll-like face that rarely changes expression. Beneath his skin he is largely mechanical: he is a cyborg built from a genetically, chemically, and robotically modified human fetus, and only his brain and brainstem remain organic. He was one of ten units in the HC Series, a line of prototype soldiers known as the Killing Dolls, created by the Vatican scientist Professor Gepetto Garibaldi for a project meant to produce the ultimate soldier. When Garibaldi came to doubt the morality of his work, he fled with the units and hid in Castel Sant'Angelo, where they were confronted by Abel Nightroad. There the professor, seeing his creations operational, took his own life. Abel destroyed the other units but spared Tres, who was then placed under the command of Cardinal Caterina Sforza and reconstructed. His name is derived from the way his serial number, IIIX, was read aloud, and the members of AX gave him the name. He is also known as Padre Tres, Father Tres, or simply Tres.
In personality, Tres is calm, quiet, and almost entirely without visible emotion. He speaks in a flat, mechanical tone and uses words such as affirmative and negative instead of yes and no, and he offers statements like status report in place of asking how someone is. He refers to himself as a machine rather than as a person, follows orders literally, and shows no fear of death, because he considers destruction a breakdown rather than a death. He is nearly always composed and rarely shows surprise, and his functions are oriented almost entirely toward combat. Beneath this hollow exterior, however, there are moments in which he displays something like human feeling. He can lie or bend his orders to protect his teammates, he quietly reassures allies such as Esther when she doubts herself, and he has experienced emotions he himself compares to human ones, including love, even though he does not fully understand them.
His primary motivation is loyalty to Cardinal Caterina Sforza, who claimed him and gave his existence a purpose. He obeys her orders without hesitation, and the memory of the moment he came under her command is stored as a file of the highest security priority in his mind, effectively his most treasured memory. Because he was built as a weapon, his sense of purpose is tied to serving the Church through AX and protecting those under Caterina's authority. Over time, his actions come to be shaped less by pure programming and more by a desire to safeguard his comrades.
In the story, Tres serves as a field agent and firearms specialist within AX, deployed on dangerous missions alongside agents such as Abel Nightroad. He is capable of engaging Methuselah opponents directly with his twin automatic pistols and provides reliable tactical support and firepower during operations. He is especially prominent in the early parts of some versions of the story, and in the novel continuity he is one of the few agents available to investigate the Silent Noise incident in Rome. Among his colleagues he functions as the quiet, efficient soldier, while others handle diplomacy and investigation.
His most important relationship is with Caterina Sforza, and the devotion he shows her is the closest thing he has to an emotional core. His history with Abel Nightroad is complicated, because Abel was the one who destroyed his fellow Killing Dolls and chose to spare him, and the two later serve together as AX colleagues. The other HC units, such as the one called Duo Iqus, are referred to as his brothers in some versions of the story; Duo considers Tres broken because Tres developed values of his own instead of behaving like a standard unit. In the anime adaptation, the existence of these brother units is not acknowledged. With allies such as Esther, he shows an unspoken protectiveness, offering encouragement and disregarding his own orders when their safety requires it.
Over the course of the story, Tres gradually reveals that he is more than a machine. Although he continues to describe himself in mechanical terms, he develops a protective sense toward his companions, learns to act against strict instructions when loyalty to people demands it, and comes to hold particular memories as if they were emotions. The encounter with Caterina becomes the defining moment of his sense of self, and his measured development from an obedient weapon into something closer to a person with attachments is one of the quieter character arcs in the series.
In terms of abilities, Tres is a cyborg who can withstand gunfire and injuries that would disable or kill a human, though enough accumulated damage can impair his combat performance. He carries a pair of automatic pistols that appear to never run out of ammunition, and he is an accurate and relentless gunfighter. He also has hidden cannon barrels built into his wrist joints, which he uses when he is disarmed, and he possesses built-in sonic and visual sensors that allow him to detect incoming attacks and track targets around him. He operates with several modes, including a tracking mode for locating a lost companion or an enemy and a combat mode in which he draws both pistols and systematically engages every opponent before him. Because his creator was able to repair him, his mechanical body can be maintained and rebuilt when damaged, and the combination of an organic brain with an artificial frame makes him durable, efficient, and highly dependable in battle.
In personality, Tres is calm, quiet, and almost entirely without visible emotion. He speaks in a flat, mechanical tone and uses words such as affirmative and negative instead of yes and no, and he offers statements like status report in place of asking how someone is. He refers to himself as a machine rather than as a person, follows orders literally, and shows no fear of death, because he considers destruction a breakdown rather than a death. He is nearly always composed and rarely shows surprise, and his functions are oriented almost entirely toward combat. Beneath this hollow exterior, however, there are moments in which he displays something like human feeling. He can lie or bend his orders to protect his teammates, he quietly reassures allies such as Esther when she doubts herself, and he has experienced emotions he himself compares to human ones, including love, even though he does not fully understand them.
His primary motivation is loyalty to Cardinal Caterina Sforza, who claimed him and gave his existence a purpose. He obeys her orders without hesitation, and the memory of the moment he came under her command is stored as a file of the highest security priority in his mind, effectively his most treasured memory. Because he was built as a weapon, his sense of purpose is tied to serving the Church through AX and protecting those under Caterina's authority. Over time, his actions come to be shaped less by pure programming and more by a desire to safeguard his comrades.
In the story, Tres serves as a field agent and firearms specialist within AX, deployed on dangerous missions alongside agents such as Abel Nightroad. He is capable of engaging Methuselah opponents directly with his twin automatic pistols and provides reliable tactical support and firepower during operations. He is especially prominent in the early parts of some versions of the story, and in the novel continuity he is one of the few agents available to investigate the Silent Noise incident in Rome. Among his colleagues he functions as the quiet, efficient soldier, while others handle diplomacy and investigation.
His most important relationship is with Caterina Sforza, and the devotion he shows her is the closest thing he has to an emotional core. His history with Abel Nightroad is complicated, because Abel was the one who destroyed his fellow Killing Dolls and chose to spare him, and the two later serve together as AX colleagues. The other HC units, such as the one called Duo Iqus, are referred to as his brothers in some versions of the story; Duo considers Tres broken because Tres developed values of his own instead of behaving like a standard unit. In the anime adaptation, the existence of these brother units is not acknowledged. With allies such as Esther, he shows an unspoken protectiveness, offering encouragement and disregarding his own orders when their safety requires it.
Over the course of the story, Tres gradually reveals that he is more than a machine. Although he continues to describe himself in mechanical terms, he develops a protective sense toward his companions, learns to act against strict instructions when loyalty to people demands it, and comes to hold particular memories as if they were emotions. The encounter with Caterina becomes the defining moment of his sense of self, and his measured development from an obedient weapon into something closer to a person with attachments is one of the quieter character arcs in the series.
In terms of abilities, Tres is a cyborg who can withstand gunfire and injuries that would disable or kill a human, though enough accumulated damage can impair his combat performance. He carries a pair of automatic pistols that appear to never run out of ammunition, and he is an accurate and relentless gunfighter. He also has hidden cannon barrels built into his wrist joints, which he uses when he is disarmed, and he possesses built-in sonic and visual sensors that allow him to detect incoming attacks and track targets around him. He operates with several modes, including a tracking mode for locating a lost companion or an enemy and a combat mode in which he draws both pistols and systematically engages every opponent before him. Because his creator was able to repair him, his mechanical body can be maintained and rebuilt when damaged, and the combination of an organic brain with an artificial frame makes him durable, efficient, and highly dependable in battle.