Born in the year 1971, Ezekiel Vespera grew up under the shadow of the Cold War. Ezekiel was the youngest of two brothers and had the immense fortune of living a great life with two loving parents. His father, David Vespera, was a renowned hunter within the Order of Unending Radiance as a Paladin. David had close ties with the Elder, so much so that David at one point was one of five people who saw the Elder’s face. With this privilege came the responsibility to the Order’s pledge; The hunters must annihilate any and all creatures in opposition to the will of the Heavens. And David was the most faithful to the doctrine that there was for many years.
Ezekiel’s mother, Leah, was also an accomplished hunter in her regard, turn to childrearing when Isaiah, Ezekiel’s older brother, was born. However, Leah Vespera never lost her skills and trained almost as hard as she did while active in the Order. Leah maintained that edge while raising the children, though it was more directed towards ensuring her boys would become the best cadets in the Order. So, Isaiah and Ezekiel started training as soon as they reached preschool. Leah would often cite that this was their right as descendants of two legendary hunters.
To their mother’s chagrin, Isaiah did not take well to the lessons in hand-to-hand combat. Instead, he became a prodigy of healing. The priests of the Order were ecstatic upon hearing the news and offered to teach the boy at every turn. Yet Leah refused to let Isaiah become a healer and only relented after witnessing Ezekiel’s prowess with a blade. The two brothers shot up the ranks of the Order, receiving standard educations through the Order’s training programs. By the age of thirteen, Ezekiel had become proficient at the use of five different weapons, though his preferred weapon was always his broadblade.
After turning fourteen, the Order allows its cadets to spar one another. Ezekiel would spar against his rival, Mariella Aurora. Despite being categorized as a healer, Mariella was the only person who could keep up with and even surpass Ezekiel in their age group. Her exceptional skill with a set of thin, paired short swords. The pair had an intense and heated rivalry throughout their teenage years, culminating in several back-and-forth duels. Eventually their duels brought their mutual best friend, Michael, to keep score for them. This running tally was maintained until the trio reached their final year in cadet academies.
Most cadets face the examinations at the age of nineteen, but Ezekiel, Mariella, and Michael were allowed to take the examination at the age of seventeen. Thus, Ezekiel and Isaiah were reunited in the examinations. The four of them proceeded to score the highest on the examination, becoming the highest scoring group of cadets since the days of David Vespera himself. Ezekiel scored three points higher than his father, prompting his father to give an embittered but well-deserved congratulations to the young prodigy. Their father proceeded to condemn Isaiah for allowing his younger brother to best him.
After the examination, Ezekiel, Mariella and Isaiah were sent on a refugee escort mission by David. Time had seen David grow more and more bitter as he aged, losing the gleam in his eye when he saw his sons. Instead, he found himself staring at his children with contempt. As such, David sent the trio on a mission that most hunters would save for seasoned veterans. Michael could tell something was off about the mission and requested that he be sent alongside the group to provide more protection. David told Michael that the most talented hunter of the new age should be more than enough to protect two very capable healers before promptly telling Michael to stop sticking his nose in family affairs.
Ezekiel, Mariella, and Isaiah departed on their mission to escort the caravan of refugees along the Mississippi River. Having little money of their own, the caravan mostly used wood they found in the forests to build their vehicles. A simple escort mission meant to take a week ran into numerous obstacles including broken wheels, lost cargo, flooding, and getting a wheel stuck in the mud. After three long weeks, the caravan had reached its final destination. It was a quaint, small town just west of the mouth of the Mississippi. Upon stepping foot in the town, a strong wind blew from the south, carrying the wretched scent of copper and metal.
Within moments of their arrival, Ezekiel, Mariella, and Isaiah were assaulted by a horde of vampires. So immense was this horde that amidst the fighting, Isaiah was separated his two compatriots. Despite fighting mostly lesser vampires, Ezekiel and Mariella’s movements slowed after relentless hours of battle. The two were managing to stave off the horde, but they were losing ground. The refugees had been massacred within an hour, leaving the pair to fight alone with little resources aside from what they could scavenge.
By the fourth hour of fighting, a powerful and potent presence descended upon the battlefield. Ezekiel saw her face and had only two words come to mind: majestic beauty. In mere moments, Ezekiel had been charmed by this vampire, his mind folding under the immense strain and unfathomable strength of will of one of the strongest vampires among the noble families, Arabella Firros, leader of the Hell’s Sirens.
Arabella had but one goal. She gauged Ezekiel as someone worthy of her attention. While his legend had not yet grown, his strength of will had fascinated the near two thousand year of vampire. Arabella’s luminous crimson eyes lingered on his form long enough that Isaiah to sneak behind her where Isaiah attempted to pierce her with his blade. What Isaiah did not account for was that Arabella wasn’t alone. Before Isaiah’s weapon could reach the Matriarch, Arabella’s daughter, Victoria ripped the young man’s heart from his flesh. Mariella’s shrieks of unadulterated rage and the aura she consecrated into the ground scattered the vampires around her. In doing so, the aura ripped Ezekiel’s mind out of Arabella’s hands for long enough for Ezekiel to realize what happened.
Ezekiel reached into his soul, conjuring a blue broadsword coated with indigo flames. Ezekiel makes to charge toward the two vampires, but a hand stops him. Mariella, straining to maintain her protecting veil, runs away from the town and Ezekiel follows. He knew deep down in his heart that he could not kill the vampires today, but there would be another day when he would amass the power to do so. Upon returning to the Order’s headquarters located in the nation’s capital, Ezekiel rushed to his father’s office.
David met his son’s eyes with a stoic expression when Ezekiel entered the room. Isaiah’s body was laid flat on the floor on an operating table within his father’s office, wrapped in the Order’s flag. Michael had entered the room just behind Ezekiel, both of them fuming. The three men had a vicious argument, culminating in all three of them being summoned to the Elder’s chamber. Dumbfounded by this summoning, David entered the chamber with the confident swagger he always had. Ezekiel and Michael both entered with passions inflamed and swords drawn. As soon as they crossed the threshold into the Elder’s chamber, their weapons dissipated into the wind.
The Elder recounted the events of the mission, including the details of how Isaiah died and Ezekiel was charmed. The Elder, then, recounted Mariella and Ezekiel’s month-long escape from Arabella’s vampire swarm. David chuckled to himself as the thought of his child being charmed, musing that he would never be charmed. However, as soon as the words left his mouth, David’s expression became stone. From around the corner, Arabella emerged with a bouquet of roses, handing them to Ezekiel. Though not charmed, Ezekiel felt compelled to take them against his emotions.
Arabella apologized for her daughter’s actions, which were in violation of the truce that she and the Elder held. No one in the entire Order knew of this secret, including David himself. Ezekiel was shocked by the sincerity in the vampire’s eyes, a detail that Michael did not miss. Michael condemned the vampire for not keeping her end of the bargain and threatened to kill her for her transgression. The Matriarch chuckled to herself just a little upon sizing up Michael, dismissing the young man’s threat and citing that Ezekiel might have a chance at killing her.
Mariella’s malice was palpable from across the room. Should the seal of nonviolence not been present in the room, Mariella would have struck Arabella without hesitation. The Elder told Arabella to leave the room, surprising everyone when she told him not to order her around before planting a kiss on Ezekiel’s cheek.
After a month, David was excommunicated from the Order after an investigation proved he was behind sending Isaiah on the mission which caused his demise. The Elder refused to execute David because he knew that David would not live much longer. Ezekiel was promoted to his father’s previous position, bearing the responsibility of commanding the Order’s missions with the new Cadets. The only person who ranked higher than him was the Elder himself. After his father’s death, only fury burned within the young man’s heart, inspiring the next six years of training for Ezekiel.
Throughout those six years, Ezekiel grew more and more busy with missions from the Elder. He never saw his friends because they were all being sent out to hunt new vampires that emerged. By the year 1995, Ezekiel’s legend had grown to be the utmost prominent hunter. He was the face of the Order. It was this very year when his life would change forever. The Elder tasked Ezekiel with hunting down a powerful vampire tucked away in the Everglades. Gathering himself a group of six promising cadets alongside his brother-in-arms, Michael, Ezekiel led these recruits to hunt for the threat within the Everglades.
However, Ezekiel would leave the Order just a year after this fateful mission. One day, Ezekiel returned from a separate mission with a baby girl swaddled in cloth that only ancient empire could’ve produced, the Order was up in arms about what to do about it. In an incredible act of generosity, Mariella took responsibility for the young girl, citing that Mrs. Aurora had blue eyes. Looking upon this transgression, the Elder exiled both of them. Michael had fought for them to stay but backed down when the Elder threatened to exile him as well. Within a week, Mariella left alongside Ezekiel, carrying a white-haired little girl with bright blue eyes as they moved to the Everglades. Mariella questioned this action, so Ezekiel told her that it would be the furthest from the Order’s satellite locations while remaining within the United States.
It wouldn’t be long before Mariella suspected the parentage of the little girl named Katherine. Ezekiel explained everything to her when Mariella questioned him, leading to one of the messiest fights the two had ever gotten into. However, when the dust settled, Mariella stayed with Ezekiel, adopting baby Katherine as her own and gave birth to a son a few years later. Ezekiel was proud of his family, though he never let his training slip. There was always a fear that the supernatural would be drawn to Katherine, and he refused to let the same thing that happened to his brother happen to her.
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