Derek Bradley (D-913)

1stLt. Derek "Spongey" Bradley (born August 29th, 1979) was a veteran of the United States Marine Corps (USMC) and a survivor of the spiritual infection that destroyed the United States of America in the late summer of 2010. 1stLt. Bradley used his near-decade of desert and combat experience to lead a group of survivors from the town of Cramburg, Montana to Ely, Minnesota. 
==Biography==
===Early Life===
Derek was born in the small town of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, where he spent most of his life raised in a strict fundamentalist Evangelical household that frequently preached about the inevitability of the biblical apocalypse. Bradley married young at the age of twenty to his high school sweetheart Lana Hearthstone and shortly therafter inherited her grandfather's property in Cramburg, Montana following his passing in the summer of 2001, where they settled with the full intent of starting a family.
That plan changed on the morning of September 11th, when Derek, appalled the events he'd seen unfold on broadcast news, resigned himself to serving in the military.
===USMC Service and Discharge===
After doing several tours of active duty as a marine in both Iraq and Afghanistan between 2003 and 2009, Bradley chose not to renew his service and was honorably discharged in September. Derek had since abandoned his Christian faith and returned to find Lana suffering from life-threatening emphysema.
By the time of the outbreak, Lana had passed and Derek found himself living alone, struggling for good work, feeling disillusioned and abandoned by his country and alienated by the comfort of his own bed. Derek spent most of his days wasting time and money at Calvin's Tavern. Nevertheless, his training, discipline and experience with active combat placed him as the reliable de-facto leader of the survivors from Cramburg Township.
===Apocalypse===
==Personality==
Derek is a very kind and respecting person, he trusts people until they give him reason not to, he believes everyone deserves a second chance and should be forgiven. It is through Derek's strong sense of morality that he is able to easily make friends.
==Physical Appearance==
==Appearances==
==Killed Victims==
==Relationships==
==Gallery==
==Further Notes==
* Derek was one of three characters explicitly created by Reawakening lead creator Martin Kevil for Apocalypse: the other two being Wilfred Cunningham and Vishal Siddiqui. Derek would subsitute for Joseph Stieker, writing his origin as initially being part of the same group of survivors as Stieker during the Fall of Cramburg: a role that would come back around when the opening chapter of Apocalypse was expanded.
** Throughout most of the development of Apocalypse, Bradley's first name was Dontey and was initially described by Kevil as being a "beefy black lawyer". His appearance and occupation would change as he was merged with the pre-existing character of LCpl. Ryan Thompson, who was re-written to be Derek's friend during his time in Iraq.
==Sources & Links==