Braxton Hatchet

Braxton Hatchet was a 98 year old human male who is possibly best known for his involvement in founding the first official gladiatorial organization in New Crunk City; The New Crunk City Gladiatorial League. He is also best known for being an undefeated champion of his weight class in said league.

## Origin

Braxton was born to a very poor farming family in District 1, and was a bit of a troubled youth. Throughout much of his childhood there he would get into some pretty crazy fights with the other local kids. On many occasions, young as he may be, he would beat kids much older than he. Of course, his parents were not particular fans of this behavior, as he was rarely helping out around the farm and getting into brutal fights at only the age of 13. And these fights were brutal, Braxton would do pretty much anything he needed to win, from throwing dirt in eyes, to kicking crotches; nothing was too underhanded to win as winning was all that mattered.

When Braxton was around 15 he got into his first fight that involved weapons. To be fair, he wasn't the one who brought the weapon to the fight. While chopping wood, several other kids surrounded him with weapons of their own. They carried pipes, axes, knives, and one of them had a scythe. Of course, Braxton had to defend himself and held on to the one thing he had- his family axe.

Just as it had gone with most of his previous fights, he won but not by much. Nobody died, but Braxton was pretty fuckin beat up, A couple stab wounds and a nasty gash down his right arm that left a scar he'd carry for the rest of his life.

### Living with his uncle

When his parents found out about the fight, though it wasn't his fault, they were furious and decided to send him to live with his uncle- a reclusive shaman living in a cabin in a remote forest. They also said he could only take a couple things with him, and he chose to bring the one thing that protected him: his family axe.

At first, Braxton thought he'd hate living there, but he would later remark it as being the best time in his life. This was because his uncle did not shun his will to fight, but embraced it. His uncle sensed the fighting spirit in the young man, and decided to foster it into something greater. He trained Braxton to fight with honor and technique being the cornerstones of his fighting style, and Braxton took a vow to always fight with these principles.

## Founding the NCCGL

At the age of 25, his uncle sadly passed, but not before giving these words to Braxton: "Fight, son, not for the glory or the or the fortune but for the sport, and what it represents. Combat is human, and a display of the very thing that has kept us alive since the beginning. Fight, to connect yourself to the pinnacle of human strategy."

After the passing, Braxton left the cabin to move to the bustling New Crunk City, to pitch the idea of organizing a fighting league. It actually didn't take long to find investors and supporters. Fighting sports were a common pastime in the city, so it was only natural that it be brought up a notch. Alongside the other founders; Amelia Heartstabber, Jason Tryangel, and Lorgramar Splintertooth, Braxton founded the New Crunk City Gladiatorial League, the first organization that ever hosted live death sporting events, with skill and honorable fighting as the founding ideals of the league.

The league was actually really popular, people loved the display of battle prowess, and it became one of the most popular and regularly watched sporting events for a solid 50 years, and through all this Braxton was the undefeated axe-wielding warrior who always drew the largest crowds. Never once had he been defeated, yet never once did he brag about it. He didn't kill his enemies if he could help it, and always complimented the ones who survived in addition to offering to help train them further. He represented the spirit of the sport since the very beginning.

## Retirement

Despite living through 50 years as an undefeated champion of a sport he helped popularize, there was not much he or his colleagues could do to continue meeting the changing demands of the populace. Newer organizations began propping up and superseding the humble league. The biggest of these, The Gladiator Beatdown Arena, was particularly known and popularized for its use of flashy colors, abundance of fantastical special moves, and constantly hyping up the victors. These things disgusted the older Braxton, who worked hard to instill the ideals he lived by into the sport.

Eventually, Braxton had to retire. At the age of 75 he and Lorgramar (the only two remaining of the original founders) agreed that their era was over, and officially shuttered the New Crunk City Gladiatorial League. The league had not been able to pull in the crowds it used to for the past 15 years. Lorgramar would return to his home town in the mountains of Arcopolis, and Braxton would return to live in his uncles cabin. He would actually start up a lumber business, Braxton Hatchet's Lumber and Lumber Products.

## Return

For the next 23 years, Braxton lived peacefully and quietly in his cabin. He didn't like to keep up with whatever was going on in the world, and liked to just keep to himself. For the most part, the name Braxton Hatchet was pretty much forgotten, supplanted by newer, younger, "greater" fighters to be adored by the masses. Only historians of the sport really knew of him, and the people who grew up being his fans were quite old and forgotten him. Braxton was fine with this, he didn't have to be remembered.

That all changed when his lumberyard was visited by who was at the time the most popular gladiator: Halio Gost. An infamous braggart, he wanted to check in on the old man to just rub it into his face of how his era was over. Halio also thought it'd be a good publicity stunt to beat an old legend, so he challenged Braxton to a fight. Normally, the 98 year old man would decline, not out of weakness or fear, but because he didn't agree with the way Halio represents the sport now.

But... Braxton did agree, and soon he would find himself back in the arena. The reappearance of a name long forgotten drew hundreds of thousands to the new fancy arena, all to view what would become the most famous fight in gladiatorial history.

To put things into perspective, Halio was 28 years old and in his prime. He too was undefeated, and was a fan favorite for his use of fantastic maneuvers and special moves. In the words of Braxton "He was a child, an arrogant one at that. Just as I tried to create a respectable sport, his kind degenerated it. He represents all that has gone wrong with it, and I will show him that he should respect the old ways."

The fight would last a total of 2 hours, about much longer than anything Halio or anyone else for that matter expected from the old man. In fact, Braxton was still as strong as ever, and absolutely beat the shit out of Halio, finishing him off with the first and only special move Braxton had ever used in his career: The Braxton Quadruple Chopper. He would not go to the award ceremony, and instead returned back home. His words when he left the arena "I hope this serves as a reminder that the old ways will always be superior."

Braxton would later pass peacefully in his sleep later that year. In his will, he had all of his funds to be used for the foundation of a museum to honor and remember the history of the sport.