Blaze Devall was born into a perfect world. Loving parents who were well off enough to secure him a good future. Likely to follow their footsteps as scientists exploring the edges of the known universe, hoping to uncover the mysteries of those who came before. A good life. And then in a single day it all changed.
Blaze was 6 when it happened, the year 792. While traveling through Gamma in search of Artifacts the Zoner research vessel the family resided on was attacked. The attacker was a
young Corsair, delirious and starved after being unable to fulfill the requirements of his trial. Not having yet discovered the presence of the nomads or the AI, the ship was not outfitted for combat and was quickly disabled by its unintelligible attacker. With no Zoner ships within range or even other Corsairs to restrain their wayward companion the family was left to his mercy. Boarding the ship the Corsair was quickly able to locate the room where the small family had taken cover, easily overpowering the meager defense they presented. While the family had originated in Liberty, this Corsair was Cretan born. The rugged harsh life of Crete breeds equally harsh men and this was the only advantage it took for the young Corsair to overwhelm their defenses. Blaze could only watch hidden nearby as his parents were butchered in front of him. Eventually the Corsair had his fill and left, never knowing of the child who had barely escaped his grasp. While only intended to last for two weeks without resupply, the ships provisions would prove quite long-lasting when reduced from a crew of three to a crew of one. The ship would drift for over a month before being found by a group of Zoners hoping for easy salvage.
Twelve years passed. It was 804, the Nomad war had come and gone.
Through a mixture of charity and selling off what remained of his families possessions Blaze would manage to make his way back to Liberty. Despite going through years of therapy to deal with what he'd been through his innocence had been lost forever. The great illusion had been shattered. While making it most of the way through high school he would be unable to finish and had to drop out, ending up as one of many young people stuck working a dead end job. No education meant no opportunity, no future. It was during this time that he first learned of the Xeno movement and their struggle for recognition. After hearing of their cause and their purpose Blaze would find himself filled with passion. Here was a group that fought for more than itself, for the downtrodden. For the people. Rally after rally he cried for justice, screamed for equality. Eventually his dedication gave rise to recognition, soon being invited to join the group formally. It was during his first outing to learn what the group was really about that he would understand just what he'd gotten himself into.
The group he was with told him that a gaggle of Rogues had landed nearby, intent on peddling their nefarious product to the locals. Having seen what happens to those who had given up and accepted their position at the bottom as permanent Blaze understood better than most what Cardamine could do to a person. The makeshift militia assaulted the Rogues at their freighter, heavy fighting ensued. At the end of it Blaze found himself the lone survivor. Being the newest recruit he was tasked with bringing up the rear, saving his life when a Rogue decided to end his life and the lives of his attackers with a grenade. In the process of checking for survivors it was then that Blaze learned the dark truth of the Xenos. Kneeling beside the leader of the group they would both look at each other, the true mortality of the wounds sustained an unspoken understanding between them. To Blaze's surprise the instructions were not to destroy the drugs, but to deliver them. Disgusted at learning that the cause he had supported for so long was at the end of the day willing to use such deplorable methods to bring about change immediately destroyed his faith in the movement. Boarding the freighter Blaze would set course, first off the planet and then out of the system. He'd heard rumors of a group surfacing, one with goals and the means to make them reality. One with unshakable dignity and resolve. He did not know where they were, only that they were. It would be his first encounter with a group he would come to know and love, even call his comrades. It was his first encounter with the Hellfire Legion.
The year was 810.
In many ways Blaze's time with the Legion was refreshing. All the disorder, all the uncertainty was suddenly gone. In its place he found order, security, and a new cause. At the same time he found himself oppressed in a whole new way. While he may be fighting for a future free from oppression, it was still a military he'd signed up for. Lights out, lights on, eating, working. There was a time for everything. And each thing must be done at the correct time exactly as instructed or run the risk of disciplinary action. This was doubly true given the state the Legion found itself in, enemies at every corner. Some may wonder how such a group had managed to survive at all under such conditions. Dedication was the answer. And dedicated he was. Blaze obediently followed every order, every command. At the beginning this mattered little.
Each instructor cared only about training every recruit under their command into a killing machine so fearless and so fierce that they might be mistaken for an actual machine. While he had never even completed high school this did not matter much. What Blaze was learning was an entirely different game. Ground combat, small squad tactics, weapons maintenance, flight simulators, correcting aim during high speed maneuvers, proper usage and timing for missile and mine launchers. These and other topics all blended together until they had succeeded into turning a high school dropout libertonian worker into an efficient killing machine. Or at least that's what he was told. With no taste of real combat he was simply left with his own illusions of grandeur and thoughts of fighting the good fight.
After eight months of training he and the rest of the trainees were cleared for flight status. Over that time he'd built relationships with many of his fellow recruits, relationships that were unfortunately doomed to end. Given the rather unwise nature of sending out a unit full of freshly trained recruits on their own the Legion had adopted the practice of attaching five fresh recruits with each patrol, making each wing a patrol group of ten. This meant that each group had an equal amount of fresh recruits to veteran legionnaires, allowing time to pass on information and experience to the newer recruits while also giving them the chance to become familiar with the sometimes treacherous fields that occupied much of the system. Even with shields up hitting something going at the speeds the Legion ships were capable of could easily result in disaster. The first four flights went without incident, the flight paths assigned by the Legion command intentionally away from the high risk areas typically patrolled by the Armed Forces and Navy. It was during this fifth flight however that Blaze would get his first taste of combat, his first true awakening of how far his training had brought him. And his first meeting with the Outcasts.
