Eli Taylor

Official art by Babisu Kourtis

Eli Taylor is an American soldier working in Vulture Squad for Amadeus Jericho, later being made its leader once he was left the last member of the squad.

## History

### Early Career

Eli Taylor was born in Kentucky. When Eli was around the age of 18 he would be drafted into the military and sent out into the Vietnam War, where he met Charlie Miller and Ramirez. On their first mission with the Marines, their helicopter was shot out of the sky, killing everyone but those three. After dragging Miller (who had been rendered unconscious from the crash), the trio were found by the Viet Cong that shot them down and forced into a fire fight until an evac arrived and saved them.

Eli would go on to fight in the Hue City with Miller, where he would be buried under a collapsed building, whereupon Miller would save him from the rubble. Their platoon would later be assigned to village hopping, finding suspected Viet Cong amongst villages. At their last village, their sergeant came out of a hut screaming that all of the villagers were Viet Cong, and had all of them killed. Among the dead villagers was a six year old girl, the revaluation that the men killed her traumatizing both Eli and Miller as they put her in the mass grave with her mother. The shock also caused Eli to become an alcoholic.

At some point down their career, Ryan Baker would pick both Eli and Miller to be a part of Vulture Squad, a squad working to liberate Viet Cong POW camps.

### Arrival in Vulture Valley

After one routine assignment, Vulture Squad was called to Jericho's Base for a new assignment. Once they got there, Jericho started berating the team, personally insulting Eli specifically before beginning on the assignment. The group was too look for a missing platoon of Green Beret. The team rested up, with Eli stealing a bottle of \_\_\_\_ before they departed into the valley in the Father Vulture. On the flight, the group questioned what exactly they were doing within the valley and why it was so important until they landed. Once there, the group found evidence of what appeared to be a large bird and a backpack from one of the men, pointing towards a Russian research station. The group moved towards the location through the jungle until they noticed it becoming unreasonably quiet, eventually panicking the men into running. When Ryan had gotten ahead of the rest of the men, a predator grabbed him and dragged him off, but didn't injure him by the time Eli and the rest of the squad caught up.

With the situation over, Vulture Squad moved into the game trail sighted from the helicopter and set up camp while Ryan and Leon Vernes investigated the nearby area. As Eli prepared to go on watch, he got into a fight with Miller over his addiction, Xavier Wise breaking up the fight and putting Eli on first watch, where he found a *Tyrannosaurus* tooth. After Xavier took his place, he came running into Eli and Miller's tent, hiding from something and telling everyone he had seen a dinosaur once Gerald Keyes and Logan Stovall also woke up. Eli was the only one who originally believed him due to the tooth. The group heard the Father T. rex roaring in the direction Ryan and Leon had been heading, rushing there to see Ryan, Leon, and the Father fall off a cliff.

The group picked up the campsite and moved towards the river, finding an orchard serving as a mating ground for a herd of *Stygimoloch*. The group attempted to sneak by the herd until a male unwittingly urinated in Eli's face. Eli got up and attempted to shoot the animal but was when the herd was attacked by a pack of *Deinonychus*. Xavier ordered the men into the herd to make it harder for the pack to target them, but Eli was knocked over by one of the herbivores and had to be rescued from being trampled by Miller at the cost of losing the herd. The *Deinonychus* chased the group through the river until the squad had to rest, allowing them to drag away Eli. Eli, with the assistance of Miller, were able to kill the attackers before returning to Xavier, who had to deal with one himself. The three yelled out, hearing Gerald but only finding a shell-shocked Logan, who came back to his senses and told them the pack took Gerald, whom they then rushed after.

## Personality

Eli is a friendly, wise-cracking man, constantly looking for ways to alleviate the tension in a situation or just make a joke, although he will become quiet and serious if the situation truly requires it or he has lost someone close to him. In spite of his friendly attitude, Eli is quick to lose his temper when confronted, becoming violent easily. The thought of Miller being in danger would send Eli into a nervous frenzy, causing him to disregard Leon's life threatening injuries to attempt and save Miller earlier. A struggling alcoholic, he often carried a flask with him on missions, and it earned him much chagrin from his teammates, particularly his best friend, Charlie Miller. This alcoholism stemmed from the traumatic events he had witnessed before joining Vulture Squad. The trauma of losing Miller eventually would serve as the catalyst for him to quit his drinking addiction permanently. After a year of heading the new iteration of Vulture Squad, Eli had lost much of his humor and accent, becoming dry and not liking many of his new recruits.