Lalith Villanite's Backstory

Lalith Vasquez was born in the year 5300 as the only child of Yvonne Vasquez and Pedro Vasquez. For the first five years of his life, Lalith was coddled and spoiled by his mother, but when a drunk driver caused Yvonne's death, things changed drastically for Lalith. 

Pedro did not handle the loss of his wife well. He was filled with anger and pain, even going so far as to hire a local gang to kill the drunk driver who caused his wife's death. Unfortunately, the gang he hired forced Pedro into a terrible situation. The gang held his actions over his head, blackmailing him for extra payments just to keep quiet about the hit. While he was too afraid to fight back, he expressed his rage by abusing Lalith.

Two years after Yvonne's death, Pedro had fallen into gambling in an attempt to earn enough money to finally pay the gang off entirely, but his luck did not hold. When he was out of money, and the gang came to collect, they gave him an ultimatum: A life for a life. Without hesitation, Pedro offered Lalith to the gang.

The seven-year-old Lalith was now a new member of this gang and forced to work alongside other children taken from families under similar means.

Eventually, Lalith learned he was now part of the Lakri (a colloquial shortening of their full name: Rohalakrima), a gang of Dustwind natives with a strong presence throughout the large desert city. While they had their hands in various black markets, their primary trade was the illegal automotive trade. The Lakri were responsible for most vehicle thefts in Dustwind and had a highly well-developed assortment of chop shops throughout the city, many of which employed children to do the work.

Lalith spent the first three years with the Lakri as an errand boy and car thief. When he was ten years old, the gang assigned him to one of the chop shops. Lalith proved to be a competent member of the Lakri, though his attitude towards the adults often got him in trouble. Lalith frequently took the brunt of punishments for the mistakes of other younger children and regularly stepped in to protect others from abuse where he was able to.

By the time Lalith was fifteen, he was working out of the gang's primary chop shop, and many of the younger children taken by the gang saw him as a big brother figure.

The Lackri gives younger members an option to leave the gang at the age of 15 or stay and be branded by the gang via a tattoo of a red tear on their cheek. Leaving, however, required participation in a violent ritual where the person leaving had to survive a full hour of fighting for their lives against anyone in the gang who chose to fight them. It had been many years since anyone had survived the practice.

Lalith never had a chance to make his decision, however.

Before he could decide, a bounty hunter invaded the facility, and Lalith saw this as a new opportunity.

Lalith knew that the head of the gang was in this facility; he also knew that this bounty hunter would never catch him due to the secret pathways out of the facility. Throwing caution to the wind, Lalith stole the gun of one of the adult gang members and rushed to the gang leader's office. The leader and his guards thought Lalith had arrived to help, but they were caught completely off guard when he, without hesitation, shot and killed both of the guards and tackled the boss onto the ground, now holding him hostage in his office.

The teenager held the gang boss down on the ground, gun to his head, as he felt a chill crawl up his spine. His eyes widened, and his body broke into a cold sweat, forcing a shiver out of him. His body moved out of his control: His head and eyes snapped at the office doorway to spot a dark creature.

The creature looked like a tall man, but everything inside Lalith told him this person was far from human. The man's pointed ears, golden eyes on dark sclera, and sharp teeth solidified his concerns; he was suddenly unsure if he should aim the gun at the boss's head or shoot this dark creature.

The creature spoke to Lalith, revealing himself as the bounty hunter who had invaded. Lalith forced himself out of his daze, pushing past his fear response and demanding that he be rewarded for the boss's bounty, as he was the one who caught him, not the bounty hunter.

The dark man's amused grin unsettled the boy. Just then, the boss screamed out an order, demanding the death of Lalith.

Just outside of the windowed office, one of the gang members was perched with a sniper rifle in the rafters, lining up a shot to kill Lalith, but as the gang boss yelled at the man to take the shot, Lalith spotted the sniper and immediately tried to move out of the way. The rifle went off, but rather than hitting any vitals, it tore through his right shoulder, completely shattering the joint.

Lalith began to black out. He heard the dark man yell out, and more gunfire began before he passed out.

Lalith woke up days later attached to a variety of medical tools. A pretty, dark-skinned woman greeted him, introducing herself as Tamica. She explained that they had to amputate his arm as there was no way to save it. She also had to perform several additional surgeries on the boy, as he had been living with a few abuse-related injuries he was ignoring and were worsening by the day.

The strangest thing, however, was the topic of his transfusion. Lalith had a rare blood type, and no one available had a blood type that would help him recover from the amount of blood he lost. Instead, they used the blood of a man named Aries, which was unique as it could assimilate with any other blood type based on experiments she had run. Lalith was the first to get a transfusion of Aries' blood, and as Tamica revealed the side effects, she showed him a mirror.

Lalith saw darkness spreading along his right eye's sclera, with his iris taking on a golden color countering the brown color of his left eye. Immediately, Lalith knew who this Aries was.

Tamica seemed concerned that Lalith would disapprove of this, but as he stared into the mirror, the boy smiled and began laughing. The laughter became pained, however, and soon Lalith cried uncontrollably. Tamica did what she could to console him but wasn't sure what was happening until Laith finally asked, "He's just going to toss me aside when he's done with me, too, isn't he?"

Tamica broke into tears when she heard this and hugged the teenager, comforting him until his fatigue returned and he cried himself to sleep.

Over the next week, Lalith was able to see the kids he had lived with, all of them being taken care of in the same facility he was in; apparently, this was Aries Villanite's base of operations, the home of the Villanite Privateering Company in Sauless, a nation on a completely different planet entirely.

Tamica continued caring for him as he recovered, and she explained that Aries was on a mission. Lalith also noticed that no one was forcing the kids to do any work. Instead, the kids were volunteering for work, and Tamica often told them to stop and play instead. Tamica could only argue with them so much as some of them began helping her care for Lalith and the other injured children while others took it upon themselves to take care of chores around the base without being asked to.

Lalith never imagined he would hear an adult yelling at children because they were cleaning instead of playing, nor did he ever imagine he would live anywhere filled with so much laughter.

One day, however, it all seemed like it would come to a dark end. Lalith and the children, almost all at once, felt a terrifying child crawl up their spines. Some immediately moved to hide, while others grabbed the nearest weapon. Something had triggered a fight-or-flight response in these children. Just as Lalith was about to leave his bed, he felt Tamica's hand on his left shoulder. She smiled at him and shook her head before comforting the others.

Just then, Aries entered the base, and everyone looked at the dark male and the three beautiful women who accompanied him. 

One was a short woman with long brown hair and blonde bangs. Her hair seemed to have long, floppy rabbit ears. As Tamica greeted them, she referred to this woman as Kiwei. Kiwei seemed glad to be home, excitedly greeting the children, who also seemed happy to see her.

The second woman, named Reilalia, was much taller. She had strange yellow eyes with no discernable sclera or pupils. She had a horn on the left side of her forehead, and her long, wavy, purple hair covered the right side. The children didn't seem as comfortable with her, but she appeared disheartened when she tried waving at some kids who shyly avoided eye contact. Lalith heard her blame Aries for their fear.

The third woman seemed less happy to be at the base, however. She had tan skin and pointed ears, stunning purple-colored eyes, and long auburn red hair. She seemed out of her comfort zone and asked Aries many questions, particularly about why his base was filled with a small army of children. Lalith later learned her name to be Trance.

After everyone settled in, Aries explained to Lalith and the other children that their fight-or-flight feelings when he was around were normal. Aries didn't know why people felt that way when he was around, but he did his best to promise the kids he didn't want to harm them. While Lalith wasn't entirely convinced, Tamica and Kiwei encouraged the kids to believe Aries and even admitted that adjusting to that feeling took them some time.

Aries asked Lalith about the transfusion and seemed interested in its effects on his body. Lalith was apprehensive at first, but after a few weeks with Aries, the two had become very close, often teasing and bullying each other playfully. It originally began as a joke between them, but they eventually began to see each other as father and son.

One day, Lalith found himself in a room with Aries, Trance, and Tamica. The group explained that they had finished the initial work on a new prosthetic for Lalith's right arm but that it wasn't an average prosthetic. Using Tamica's advanced medical knowledge, cybermod technology from the nearby nation of Aquis, and Trance's unique nanotechnology experience, they developed a new type of prosthetic that relied on Aries' blood inside of Lalith to work. The experiment could be harrowing and had a variety of dangers, many of which were fatal.

Lalith asked if he could join Aries on missions if he had the prosthetic. The group confirmed they would allow it. With that, he agreed.

From beginning to end, the procedure took a whole month to complete, with an extra two months dedicated to physical therapy to ensure he understood the limits and functions of the prosthetic. Tamica and Trance were impressed with how quickly he adapted to the prosthetic. Trance, specifically, was worried it was too good to be true.

The first time Lalith joined Aries on a mission, the two proved to be an extremely effective team. For the next few years, most of the privateering company's missions were led by Lalith, Aries, or both, depending on the situation.

By 5320, the Villanite Privateering Company had grown to over 200+ members who regularly carried out various missions.

One day, now widely acknowledged as a successful company by the privateering association, the company took on a particular job. Lalith wasn't privy to the details but understood that this mission held some special meaning to Aries. Since they started preparing for it, Aries seemed to be on edge; this worried Lalith, but he didn't know how to approach his new father about it, and when he asked Reilalia or Tamica about it, they both seemed to be out of the loop.

The only person Aries seemed to talk with much during the prep was the new girl, Kuransagi. Lalith hadn't had much opportunity to interact with her. As far as he understood, she had joined the crew specifically for this mission, and she and Aries seemed to have some history.

Lalith eventually put his faith in his father and followed the plan.

The mission was a fairly straightforward search-and-destroy mission. The objective was to infiltrate the Hadi Station, a space station just outside the Pelazian government's jurisdiction. Lalith never really understood why they were doing this, and the Pelazian Galactic Senate seemed uninvolved in the situation, but he didn't question it.

The privateering crew split into two teams: Team Lalith and Team Aries. 

Team Aries would focus on covert infiltration. Their goal was to retrieve all the data and information they could about the experiments on this massive space station. Once they had as much information as they could acquire, they were to place explosives in strategic locations throughout the station for remote detonation.

Team Lalith would be the loud group. They would wait for Team Aries to be deep inside the station, then begin a frontal attack against the station, ensuring that the station was busy dealing with them rather than getting in the way of Team Aries.

Once Team Aries was on the station, communication was lost entirely. The crew expected communication interference, but it put Lalith on edge nonetheless. Without clear communication from Aries' team, Lalith asked Kiwei to drop Team Lalith off right away and begin their side of the mission. The initial attack was a success. Kiwei blasted through various defenses, dropped the team off, then escaped and hid her presence from the detection of the station's sensors with the help of the team's AI, AURA.

However, just minutes after they began fighting off the defenses, Lalith heard Kiwei's voice over the comms. A virus from the station had infected AURA, compromising Kiwei's position. She was doing what she could to fight off the automated defense drones now attacking her, but piloting without AURA's help was taking all her focus.

Lalith soon spotted some Team Aries members moving towards the extraction zone. They explained that Team Aries could hear communications from Team Lalith and Kiwei the entire time, but their responses were not getting through. The one-way communication led to Reilalia instructing them to retreat, but Reilalia, Kuransagi, and Aries continued further into the station. Reilalia's orders took priority over Lalith's desire to push further, so he begrudgingly led both teams to the extraction zone, clearing the way for Kiwei to fly in and pick them all up.

Just as Kiwei pulled away from the station, explosions broke out. Lalith's heart sank as he saw the station blowing up from just about everywhere. He screamed and yelled over the comms, but a familiar chill silenced him as his body locked up. All of the crew on the ship looked out into the station. None of them had ever felt Aries' presence so clearly. Suddenly, over the comms, the team heard Aries' voice. Broken and crying, he spoke Reilalia's name again and again. Over the communication channel, the group listened to Aries begging Reilalia to live, and then they heard another man's voice mocking Aries.

Aries' aura grew so thick that some of the crew members blacked out and collapsed as the communications were lost again. The drones stopped attacking, and the station's defense systems seemed to shut down entirely. Shortly after, Aries' aura vanished utterly. The emptiness was painfully noticeable, and they all feared the worst. The crew flew around the station for hours to see if communications would pick up from anyone inside. Kiwei dropped off Lalith and a few other crew members so they could continue searching on foot.

Lalith spent a week on-site, refusing to give up until Tamica and Kiwei forced him to return to Sauless.

Lalith lashed out at everyone in the crew, claiming they all gave up on his father and demanding they return. Lalith was sure that they just needed to search a little longer. They would eventually find him, and he would thank them.

Lalith inherited ownership of the Villanite Privateering Company, but due to his mental state, Trance, and Tamica, both advised him to close the company. Unwilling to argue, Lalith returned to Dustwind.

Shortly after arriving in Dustwind, he made ends meet by taking on odd jobs for different gangs. He had money saved from his time in the crew, but he was trying not to touch that, telling himself that he would only use that to rebuild the crew once his dad returned. Trance and Tamica would check in on him from time to time, but they could see he was continuing to spiral in his depression, and they were growing more and more concerned that he wouldn't stop stating that Aries would return.

Eventually, about a year into settling into Dustwind, Pedro Vasquez showed up at Lalith's door. Dumbfounded that the man would seek him out, Lalith let him into his apartment. Pedro praised Lalith, telling him he always expected great things from Lalith. Pedro had heard about Lalith's work with the privateering association, as Aries had a habit of getting the crew involved in high-profile issues.

Pedro told Lalith about a great idea Pedro had. He urged Lalith to use the money acquired from the privateering work to bet on a sure thing Pedro had insider knowledge about.

Lalith stared at his biological father silently for a few minutes before looking down at his prosthetic arm. Lalith took a step forward and punched Pedro with his prosthetic arm, breaking the man's jaw and cheekbone, knocking him out, and possibly even giving him a concussion. Lalith dropped Pedro off at the entrance to a nearby hospital and returned to his apartment.

Lalith spent the rest of the day drinking at every bar that wouldn't kick him out. After a series of arguments and street fights, he found himself in a holding cell at the local prison, trying to make sense of why the world was upside down and tripled all at once. That was when he saw the portal.

A rift opened up in space right before him inside his holding cell. He stared at this anomaly, blinking hard to adjust his vision before he saw a familiar face appear. Lalith was looking at Amelie Markov—Reilalia's mother. Lalith had met her a few times while Aries visited his other adopted child, Mercedes, in Markovia. Lalith never understood much about Markovia or these portals, but he knew she wasn't an enemy.

Amelie was there to take him somewhere else. Lalith didn't argue at all. He stepped through the portal with her and found himself throwing up in a planter by the Markovian palace for a few minutes while Amelie patted his back.

Once Lalith finished vomiting, he asked Amelie why she had brought him to Markovia. Amelie brought Lalith to meet Mercedes, who looked like she had been crying for days. Her once vibrant green eyes were pale and lifeless, and her usually youthful and perky voice was monotonous and stale.

It seemed Mercedes was handling Aries' death just as well as Lalith was. The two of them, realizing each other's pain, began crying again, and Amelia did what she could to comfort them before explaining why she had gathered them.

Amelie knew of an ancient and potentially dangerous ritual that could bring Aries back.

Lalith wasn't bothered by the ritual's dangers. He and Mercedes asked Amelie to teach them the ritual.

Once Amelie explained all the requirements and processes needed for the ritual, she took them both back to Sauless, joining them at the Villanite Privateering Company's home base as a location to perform the ritual. Per Amelie's instructions, Mercedes prepared the ritual site and reviewed the necessary process. Meanwhile, Lalith acquired a sacrifice: a living person. Luckily, he was able to use his connections with the privateering association to find a bounty on a woman wanted for killing orphans. The orphan killer seemed like the best option for a human sacrifice.

Once all the preparations were complete, Lalith found the woman and brought her to the ritual site. The woman cried and begged for her life. She swore she would repent, but Mercedes and Lalith continued the ritual. Amelie stayed with them to handle the dangers of the ritual, which became apparent very quickly.

A thick and overwhelming darkness filled the room as the ritual began to take effect. Lalith could feel his body reacting as when Aries was around, but this was many times more intense. Like the day that Aries died, he thought that he was on the edge of blacking out from the weight of Aries' presence.

Everyone saw a grotesque creature appear in the room as the darkness took shape. Bones materialized first, slowly covered in darkened tendons and muscles, before skin began appearing. This creature was something out of nightmares—a cross between a bat, a wolf, and some kind of demonic entity. Lalith had doubts about this magic, but even as he saw the four eyes of this monster appear and snap open, he knew in his heart that this was his father.

The monster was thin, seemingly malnourished, and struggling to stay upright. A wicked growl came from the depths of its core; whether it was growling or its stomach was growling was hard to tell. It turned to face Lalith and Mercedes, drool dripping from its maw as it bared its teeth. Suddenly, Amelie stood between the beast and the two 22-year-olds, staring the beast down.

The beast stared back at Amelie momentarily before the other woman in the room began questioning what was happening. The beast looked at the orphan killer and lunged. There was no scream; it immediately tore through her throat. Twisted sounds filled the air instead: The crunching of bones breaking as the monster's maw closed around her body parts, the wet sounds of chewing as blood spilled on the ground and down the creature's face and chest, the growls of a starving beast enjoying a delicious meal. Mercedes, Lalith, and Amelie watched as the dark entity devoured this woman entirely.

Once the beast finished its meal, it fell back and let out pained growls as its body began shifting and morphing. The painful transformation resulted in Aries sitting in front of them, covered in the blood of his meal and still looking somewhat malnourished.

He weakly looked over at Lalith and Mercedes. The moment his eyes met Amelie's gaze, however, he looked at the ground. Amelie asked, "Did you eat her?"

Aries slowly nodded as he curled his knees up to his chest, dug his golden claws into his legs, and quietly began sobbing into his knees.

The siblings motioned to comfort him, but Amelie stopped them, shaking her head and ushering them out of the room. She closed the door behind them, letting Aries stay inside alone.

For the next two days, they were still waiting to see Aries. They had been leaving food for him, but he wouldn't leave the room. Lalith wanted to go in and comfort him, eventually arguing with Amelie about Aries needing to be comforted. Finally irritated, Amelie snapped back at Lalith, reminding him that while they had lost their father and now gotten him back, Aries had lost the love of his life due to his own actions, and there was no way of getting her back. Aries led the mission that killed Reilalia. Aries was not only dealing with the loss of Reilalia; he was dealing with the guilt of it.

On the third day, Aries finally asked Amelie to speak with him privately. After the emotional conversation, Aries came out to thank Mercedes and Lalith and then apologize to them. Aries explained that there were some things he needed to do on his own. Once Aries took care of that, he would return to normal; then he asked where AURA was.

Lalith explained that the virus that attacked AURA's core during the mission corrupted it beyond repair. When the company shut down, Lalith had sold the core to a strange, eccentric collector interested in broken AI cores named Alcott Bronson. Aries hugged his children and then went to find AURA's broken core.

Amelie took the siblings with her to Markovia to rest while Aries took care of what he needed to. Mercedes and Lalith did their best to keep their spirits up for the next few weeks, but the lack of contact from Aries had them both on edge.

After a month and a half, Amelie told the siblings it was time to see their father. Amelie opened a portal, and the group found themselves in Hadi Station. Lalith felt panic set in for a moment, but when his eyes settled on his father's grinning face, tears teased his eyes.

Aries sat on a black and gold throne with a sleeping pink fox on his armrest. Aries told Lalith and Mercedes that he had reclaimed the station and renamed it. The Throne of Avinadal would now be their new home, and Aries was now the Emperor of Avinadal, a new nation founded to give a home to lost souls.

Lalith didn't bother getting too concerned about the specifics. All he cared about was that his dad was alive and well. He asked where his room was, and for the first time in an entire year, he could sleep restfully, knowing that his dad would be there when he woke up.

Lalith now serves the Avinadal Empire as a prince, and his eyes have completely changed to match Aries' golden irises and black sclera. Lalith now spends most of his time repairing and modifying ships for the empire or leading certain repair efforts for the damaged space station.