Francis 'Takoda' Tedd[]
"No zombie is safe from Takoda Tedd." - Found throughout Ei Armoa
"Come on! Anybody Hungry! Takoda's nice this time of year!" - Last words +++OFFICIAL RECORD+++
"You see, I'm in the ass-kicking business-" +++INTERRUPTION IN VOX STREAM+++ +++CAUSE:GUNFIRE+++ "...and business is good." - Takoda Tedd
Tedd was born on the idyllic agri-world of Allinois, in a small fab-hamlet known as Takoda, where the rows of Starchplant stretched off into the horizon and the polar suns would turn the plantation into a patchwork paradise. He had several brothers and his beloved cropwatch hound, Buck, who worked the farm with their parents, and Tedd would keep himself busy tending to the machines. It is believed the infection started there.
Tedd was watching the fields during that semester's Long Night, and had just taken his third and penultimate dose of stimm for the Night to keep him alert for raiding Crop Fiends. Fire erupted from his fab-home and the sound of battle carried itself across the rows of Starchplants. Snatching up his weapon and making for his home and family, it was almost a quart-hour before he had got back in time. Bodies lay burning, some moving, most not - the stench of death overwhelmed him. He heard a gutteral moan coming from the most badly burnt - completely unrecognisable as anyone he once loved - as it clawed across the terra towards him, flesh sloughing from bone with each strained effort.
He fled for his life, leaving Buck behind in his haste. Tedd managed to board a shuttle rapidly leaving the planet, forcing his way on board through sheer fear. As he watched from the cold blackness of the void Allinois getting ever smaller, a pin-prick explosion flowered from the surface, followed by another, and another. It was barely a minute before the whole surface was swathed in flames and a firestorm swept the planet, purging it entirely.
With everything he ever loved now ash on the husk of a once-beautiful planet, Tedd had nothing left to do but settle down and start again on the arid dustbowl of Ei Armoa. He tried to put his hand to cultivating again, using his home-born skills, but the earth would give him nothing. Through necessity, he fell back on his other skillset, trickshooting bird-beasts and Crop Fiends, or the local equivalent anyway.
A whirlwind of time passed, from performing with a travelling circus, to deputyship of one of the largest towns on the outer rim, to gun-for-hire, he used his hometown as his alias - Takoda Tedd. It seemed all to quickly that his fate caught up with him.
The infection had returned, now known to be the Plague Virus, which re-animates corpses and spreads itself by transfer of fluids to another host, dead or alive. Tedd went from town to town, destroying the creatures wherever he found them, first out of fear, then necessity. It seemed the whole planet had succumbed to the virus as his hometown had, and he spent days locked away awaiting his fiery death.
When it was apparent that this death was not for him, he emerged and began a new life, one of penitence and retribution. He travelled the planet, living off what had been left behind and his knowledge of tilling the land, destroying zombies wherever he found them, leaving his mark in places he would sleep, in case he ever found any other survivors. He also salvaged the most part of a broken cyber mastiff and coaxed it's machine spirit back to life. He named it Buck, so that the guilt of leaving the real Buck to burn alive would never allow him to forget what happened.
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| Hunting in Port Precipice |
It wasn't long before brave (or foolhardy) traders began returning to the planet to set up shop or scavenge what was left, and rumours began circulating the Onus about Takoda Tedd, and it wasn't long before he had attracted the attention of Dune and Tedd was swiftly added to the Collective. His enthusiasm, survival instincts and incredible marksmanship makes him a valued asset to Xerxas, and his Plague Virus knowledge is unsurpassed by any other.
"Your first name is Francis? HA! Isn't that a girl's na-"
- Last words, Anonymous