Echo Aelian fought in the Stadium as a gladiator after his wife and two children were murdered. He is reckless and fears no fights. As a result of losing his family, Echo needs to be needed and will do everything to make sure his companion Zoe Maximilian is okay.

”Well,” he said,”my story isn’t long, it’s kinda borin’ an’ you won’t know for sure if I’m serious or just jokin’ your ass around.” He smiled a strange smile, and the fire flicked and crackled, which made his eyes glow with a devilish red. With a grunt, he sat down on the cut-down mutated tree and spat into the fire, which hissed. The fire licked hungrily at the logs and burned with a deep green colour. 

“I don’t know about you, but I would kill for a decent slice of meat. Speaking of, I know a lot about meat. A couple of years in a meat factory will teach you all you wanna know about meat, and everything you don’t. There’s good meat, bad meat, meat you won’t feed your dog with, intestines that look funny and make some people puke. But any job is the same, you soon get used to it, and it won’t bother you anymore. Many of the workers became vegetarians, not me, though. They say that it’s never the same after you’ve seen where the meat actually comes from. I say a steak is a steak, and God knows how long it’s been since I had beef and a beer. That was what put me into trouble in the first place.” He sighed and looked gloomily into the crackling fire. 

“My family needed food, and a steak or two wasn’t much of a deal. It was worth risking being caught, and I never regretted the last steak I ever stole, regardless of what it led to. Hah, the sociopath mobster who ran the factory wouldn’t believe it at first, that someone would dare steal from him, and right under his nose, too!” The man laughed a mirthless laugh. 

“They tried to beat me to death, but when their last man lay bleeding on the bloody floor, they gave me a choice, either fight in the Stadium like the ol’ gladiators, as the mobster said, or my family would ‘suffer the consequences’. A gladiator used to be a fighter who fought sometimes for glory but most of the time for his life, I was told later on. So I became a gladiator and my family survived, or so I thought. I wasn’t allowed to see them, I was caged for most of the time, when I wasn’t fighting or eatin’ or exercisin’. I was good, no one survived when I was out there, rampaging on the field of the old Stadium. That was part of the problem, ‘cause soon no one dared meet me in the Circus, as we called it. I hadn’t used guns or weapons before the Circus, but I was a fast learner. You see this,” the man pointed with his chin against his shoulders, “this is a real human skull. I didn’t kill this poor sucker, but it made me famous after I used it to beat the crap out of the first opponent I had. And those teeth, yeah, they look good, don’t they?” The man yawned. 

“When they let me out, I found out that my family had been dead all along. Needless to say, I tracked that son of a bitch down and killed him, all Circus style. Thanks to him I learned all those nasty little tricks that make a death take time and look wicked. My poor Elisabeth… I hope his death delighted you. Nothing left now but me, and all I want is some steak!”