Gale Runner

## **Personality**

The Gale Runner lives by the code ‘‘Live fast, die young’’ He lives for today and rarely stops to think and worry about the future. He is addicted to speed and adrenaline, a dangerous combination that sometimes drives him to get into dangerous situations just for the thrill of it. Needless to say it is not rare for him to bite more than he can chew.

Often social and self-confident, Gale loves being the center of attention, and any sort of compliment and praising will always get to his head. He often needs to loudly remind others and himself just how great he is and won’t miss a chance to show off his skills and abilities.

Thought he might look completely self-centered and egocentric, Gale has a strong sense of justice, and won’t hesitate to jump in if he feels something is unfair. He also cares deeply for those that earn his trust and will prioritize their safety over his own.

Gale thinks fast and reacts even faster, specially under stressful situations, both a blessing and a curse as it has both took him away from sticky situations, or made him make decisions that only adds up to the problem.

As a matter of fact, deep inside of him, Gale has strong feelings of regrets and sorrows that he tries to drown with his vain and carefree life style. He is not fond of showing any feelings other than his cool guy routine to others since he feels those are a sign of weakness.

## **History**

Gale Ridder was born in a dwarf miner planet some solar systems away from the Home planet. With a colony based almost entirely around gathering a mineral used in spaceship fuel and parts life was vain and simple for many. Unless the pokemon were intelligent enough to become a researcher, skilled with technology to become a mechanic, or cunning enough to have their own small business, they were doomed to work at the mines for a living. Mining work was hard and draining, and at the end of the day the folks of the mining colony just wanted to relax and enjoy the simple pleasures of life. Fried food, Home world Television, alcohol, drugs, anything that could bring some relief to the hard reality of life sold pretty well in the colony.

Gale was born to a couple of miners, a male Noctowl and a female Talonflame, who died in an accident related to the mine when Gale was just a year old. His father’s older brother, a noctowl by the name Victor Runner decided to take care of the baby as a last favor for his beloved and adopted him into his family.

Gale grew up with his uncle Victor, his wife and his cousin Ricky Runner, who Gale always saw as an older brother. Victor was the leader of a group known as the ¨Scouts¨, they drove scouting ships around the unexplored zones of the planet searching for new mineral deposits for the colony. Victor loved the life of a scout and it didn’t take long before he introduced his two boys to it.

Gale and Ricky along with the sons of other scouts went through years of training in the arts of scouting, from learning to spot the places where a possible mineral deposit could be, to the proper way to drive and maintain a scouting ship, and the importance of bravery and speed, all in order for them to become the next generation of scouts when they current ones retired. Thought they training was hard and tedious at time, neither Gale nor Ricky ever thought about giving up, in their minds, being an Scout was the coolest thing they could become, and being the best scout in the whole Colony would surely made their old man proud. As the years passed, a fraternal rivalry sprout between the two boys, and it only became more competitive as they grow older. Ricky became more cunning as he matured and often tried to plan things up, and get the best results. Gale on the other hand, opted to be more straight-forward. He valued speed over quality, he realized he couldn’t do things as flawlessly as Ricky, but he could do them in half the time.

The love for extreme speed would later become a trait Gale would be known for. Using his scout ship to run in illegal races among the other scouts, modifying the ship´s parts to turn it into a racing vehicle, and performing dangerous stunts with it would get him the be called the fastest of his generation. His action, sadly, will always get him called the most unpredictable and unstable of his generation. The negative comments didn’t bother Gale as he was completely sure many of them were made out of envy.

The day came where Victor, now around his 60’s, decided to retire and leave the spot for a new leader of the Scouts. It was a secret to nobody that Victor would choose one of his sons as his replacement. Both hoothoots, now adults reunited in private with their father, waiting anxiously to know who would be the new leader. When Victor chose Ricky over Gale, the owl felt betrayed. He yelled as his father figure, questioning why he would choose his cousin over him. Victor replied, he said that as much as he loved Gale, Ricky was just more mature, more fit for the position. Gale was fast, he was an amazing scout, but he still acted like a kid to his uncle’s eyes.

Gale stormed out of the room with the bitter taste of humiliation still in his mouth. Decided to leave the scouts as soon as he had the chance the hoothoot came out with a plan. He would start saving up till he had enough money to leave the colony. He would travel to the home world, and look for the professional racers circuits he loved seeing on T.V He was sure in his skills, he was certain that he could make a living as a racer at the home world, where his talent would not only be appreciated, but praised.

Gale broke relationships with his cousin and uncle, barely talking to them outside of business related matters, and started saving. In the lapse of two years, Gale became more anxious about his savings. He wasn’t even halfway through his goal and patience wasn’t exactly his strong point. He needed a way to get money faster, and just working at the Scouts taking orders from his cousin wouldn’t do. Around the time, some ships from a planet nearby arrived the colony. War broke between two alliance of planets and this particular band was looking buy resources from the colony and recruit soldiers with the promise of a better salary. Seeing this as both as chance to leave the planet and ear the money he was lacking, Gale decided to leave along other residents to join the army. It was a risky decision, but he would rather die trying to accomplish his dream, than living the rest of his life at the colony in shame.

Gale went through the military training, even harder and more draining than the Scout one. Fueled by both his desire to reach his goal and the anger he felt toward his family’s betrayal Gale finished the training with honors and was sorted as light attack ship driver due to his abilities with light spaceships. When put on the battlefield Gale unleashed all the frustration he was packing since the day his uncle chose his cousin over him. Fast and deadly Gale, fought hard in every mission he was sent to. At first it was thrilling, the speed, the danger, the chases, the feeling of superiority when he outplayed an enemy ship, but as they missions went on, Gale started to realize how many good people he met at the training, many of them from the same colony as him weren’t coming back, many of them lost familiars and beloved ones and it wasn’t hard to realize that an aura of despair was growing amount the soldiers. Truth to be told his alliance was the one winning the conflict, but the amount of causalities to achieve that was gigantic and it was only getting higher. Gale started to count the days for his tour of duty to end. The despair and the pain were growing and even the thought of going back to the colony was appealing. He had enough money to move to The Home world and even get himself a decent house. He just needed to make it to the end of the tour.

Gale was assigned to a new mission, one that he hoped would be the last. He was send along with other fighting ships to one of the main planets of the enemy alliance, their goal was to seize the capital taking advantage of the huge loses the enemy army had. As soon as Gale and the other members of the attacking team came close to the planet, they were received by the enemy forces trying to defend their planet. The battle was brutal, but Gale’s side had advantage in numbers and were better armed. They pushed the enemy forces into the planet´s atmosphere and the sky of the planet became the new battlefield. It was then when Gale noticed that the crossing fire of the battle was starting to damage the capital city. He tried to ignore this until he blew up an enemy ship and this one crashed onto a huge building.

Eyeing the zone of the crash to see if the ship was fully destroyed, Gale caught a haunting sight. Inside of the building that was falling down where thousands of people, running in horror and screaming in agony as the whole construction went down. Gale realized horrified that they were fighting on a city was yet to be evacuated, full of millions of civilians that were being killed every second. He thought the city would be evacuated by now, he had no problem shooting at an enemy ships, but killing unarmed civilians was a whole different thing. Gale took off his helmet and stared horrified from the windshield of his ship what he has done.

Gale received a message from a superior questioning why he wasn’t moving his ship, Gale quickly answered the message by claiming there were people still in the city. There was a short moment of silence before his superior told him to reassume the mission, the slow reaction from the city to evacuate the civilians was their own fault and it was impossible to stop the mission in such a crucial point just because of collateral damage.

Feelings of horror, disgust and anger filled Gale’s mind as he was being ordered to continue attacking with civilians in the middle of the fire. The owl felt powerless, if he continued attacking he would probably kill more innocent people, and if he stayed there it wouldn’t take long before an enemy ship would take him down. Gale looked outside the ship and took a deep breath, he had enough of this. Gale turned off the communication with other ships, activated the turbo propellers and in a matter of seconds he was out of the orbit of the planet, flying the completely opposite direction of the fight. That day Gale Rider became a deserter.

Knowing what would happen if his superiors ever put their hands on him, Gale had to prepare a runaway plan. He had to forget about the mother land, it would be too easy for them to track him there. He needed to flee to place beyond their reach. Hiding around planets that were neutral in the conflict the rumors of a new colony looking for citizens light years away reached Gale. A place called Vyse, where he could hide from the alliance, start a new and sort things out. Using all his savings Gale got himself a ticket to Vyse along with his rogue scouting ship.

With nothing but his trusty ship by his side, The Gale Runner stands ready for whatever is waiting for him at Vyse.

## **Extra Facts**

* Gale has a light scouting ship named The nightingale.

* The nightingale was build repairing an old military scouting ship model AR-150 and replacing pieces with costume parts until it became similar to a racing ship, sacrificing space and weaponry for speed.

* Even though Gale has knowledge on mechanics it is limited to some models of ship and similar technology, any piece of technology more advanced than that or with a different nature is beyond him.

* Gale has been a huge fan of the galactic wrestling federation since he was a child, even if he knows it is all fake, it still amuses him to no end.

* Gale has knowledge on basic weaponry and melee combat thanks to his military training.

* When it comes to Hand to Hand combat, Gale uses a mix of the move he learned in his military training along with the street fighting moves and wrestling moves he used back in his hometown. He fondly calls this hybrid the Runner’s style.

* Gale´s body is relatively light, this is so he can properly use flying moves and stay on the air for a longer time. Anyone with a little more muscles than him could easily pick him up… He will not appreciate it though.

* It is rare for Gale to step out of a fight, even if it is pretty obvious odd aren’t in his favor. It wasn’t rare to see his friends dragging his unconscious body outside a bar when things didn’t go so well for the owl. Know you know where the scars come from.

* Whenever he is nervous or embarrassed Gale’s feather will puff. If it is addresses he will always deny it.

* Not fond of talking about his time in the army, he will never address on its own, and is unlikely he will talk of the topic if asked about it.

* Fond of talking about his home planet, you could hear him babbling about childhood stories for hours.

* Gale talks with a southern North American sort of accent.