From his birth up to about age ten, Zane’s life was unremarkable. His mother had died in childbirth, leaving him in the care of his older brother, Michael. Both siblings had been bastard sons of a bastard son, never even meeting their father. When Zane turned ten, his brother took an interest in the army. Grateful for an opportunity to earn more for Zane and for himself, he began to look into different ways of joining. The pay was much more than he ever hoped to earn in the run down city they were left in, so he applied to join an advanced group who began their training at a young age.
For five long years, they were instructed in the arts of combat. Experts in every field were brought in to share their experience… then used their experience on them. Anywhere else, what they inflicted on these recruits would have been considered cruel and unusual. It was as close to torture as anyone could legally get. Zane and Michael saw their fellow recruits dropping out one by one… at a few points, some would become hysterical and drop to the ground twitching and unresponsive. A few died from the beatings.
One day, Michael’s leg simply stopped working, causing him to fall during one of the training exercises. The officer in charge hollered at him to get up, but try as he might, Michael’s leg would not straighten. The officer kicked him hard enough to make him slide a yard backward and cough blood. Zane ran and threw himself over his brother, taking the hits over and over until finally the blows stopped. Zane was too blinded by pain to protest as he was lifted off his brother and thrown into a cell. He came awake slowly, roused by the sound of fists hitting flesh. Opening his eyes, he saw one of his classmates being forced to strike his brother, hung by his wrists from the ceiling. He couldn’t move… couldn’t even breathe. He fell back unconscious.
When he woke next, he was being thrown off a shuttle onto an unknown planet. He heard another thud as something landed next to him. He couldn’t tell what it was… He couldn’t remember WHO he was. All he knew was the pain. The pain of broken bones and torn skin. Of muscles and sinews torn from their places. Something picked him up. Some liquid passed his lips. He fell back into a deep sleep.
Coming awake again, he was immediately assaulted by the soreness all over his body. He was in… a house. His house? No. He didn’t recognize it. Everything seemed a bit too big. His vision was still blurry though, so he could be mistaken. Looking around he saw a…. man? Sitting at a table, sharpening a huge blade. He looked like a hawk with a giant feathered human body.
“I see you’ve woken.” He said without turning his head
“Where am I…?” Zane trailed off as he felt a spell of lightheadedness
“You are on Huygen, the home planet of the Hissho. You can call me Dr. Viakwe. This is my home. I am not sure how much you remember, but you were in very dire straits… I have treated your injuries as best I could. You still need more rest, however. Your stitches will tear if you move too much.”
Blinking away the haze that settled over his eyes, Zane managed to croak out “did you find my brother?“
“I’m afraid… your brother didn’t make it. I had tried, little one… but his injuries were too severe. He left from this life days ago, while you were still sleeping.”
Tears sprung from his eyes, making wet trails down the sides of his face. “Oh.”
He wept for a time, falling back asleep soon after.
Weeks later, he was adapting to the Hissho’s warlike culture, Huygen’s relatively thin atmosphere, and learning new techniques of combat and perfecting his marksmanship. He began to make friends with other Hissho and became good friends with his foster brother Aeakron, with whom he would regularly spar and study with. He often thought to himself that Aeakron was strangely smart for a Hissho, and a bit more reluctant towards physical confrontation. In their sparring sessions, Aeakron and Zane would always try to top each other, and most times it was a draw. Despite his foster brother’s bigger size, the regular beatings and merciless training Zane went through gave him the advantage in endurance.
After Aeakron finished the required education years later, Zane also left the place he had learned to call home. He began making a name for himself as a fighter in illegal rings most called “the pits”. He fought until he had enough money to get himself a weapon, his first dinky little pistol. From there he worked as a mercenary, buying parts for armor, upgrading his arsenal, until he had become a well known bounty hunter with his own band of hired guns. He modeled his armor after that of Hissho warriors, making his custom armor nine feet tall. He also added multiple upgrades such as electrical impulse activated movement, allowing the suit to augment his movements. His suit also had a built in visor, which he later swapped for an eye implant after a particularly nasty battle during which his left eye was damaged.
He earned the nickname “Leonidas” after being hired to defend a fortress with his men for 8 days against a force many times larger than his using the bottleneck strategy he had read about from ancient texts of the Battle of Thermopylae. The battle concluded after he decided to try to save his men by holding off the enemy with automatic turrets placed at strategic points along the escape route. On the way, he was injured, but managed to save most of his team. Of the 29 men that went into the building with him, seven survived. They each split up after receiving their cuts, keeping in contact should any of them have dire need of help.
Since then, he worked as a bounty hunter, a guard, and many other jobs that required a show of force. (or just wanted a really awesome looking, really big suit.)
