*headshot by saske (:

Name: Blade

Gender: Male

Breed: Australian Shepherd x Border Collie [Mutt]

Age: 3 Years

Personality: Quiet and observant, Blade never misses a beat. He’s known as the strong silent type, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he doesn’t have emotions. Blade would love to believe that he’s invincible and that no one in the world can touch him, but sometimes the war he’s fought in can haunt his dreams and pass on to his conscious mind. Blade is usually nice unless you give him a reason to fight you. He doesn’t go looking for trouble but doesn’t have a hard time getting out of it. He’s only fast in average terms of his breeds, but he is very capable of throwing down a dog twice his size merely because of his training. Never underestimate him. It could be your worst mistake.

Strong Points: Doesn’t go looking for fights, but he is very capable of winning one. He’s only averagely fast, so although escape is a first response, he chooses to ignore it. He’s extremely quiet most of the time, not due to shyness, but because of an occupied mind and a habit of listening in. He’s smart enough to piece together bits of information and figure things out, and looks the way he’d like to feel but doesn’t all the time – strong.

Weak Points: Blade has a long history of violence, not of his own accord, but because he would have died if he hadn’t participated in these events. He’s a bit unpredictable when being brought into topics about fighting, war, violence, or anything of the like. Blade often suffers from something close to Post Traumatic Stress disorder; it hasn’t been diagnosed, but he’s extremely touchy if you bring up something he doesn’t like. A huge example is his past. He may be strong muscular wise, but he’s not the lightning fast dog his breeds usually are built for; therefore, escaping a bad situation is pretty much out of the question. He has nightmares often, and tries to pretend everything is okay, but at the end of the day he just stays bottled up with secrets he prefers others not to know.  

History:

When Blade was a puppy, he lived with his father and mother close to his two best friends, and cousins, Grace and Rachel. Nearly every day the trio would go outside in the crossroads of their neighborhood street and play together, and that suited Blade just fine until tragedy struck. Grace had been ‘adopted’ by a man who wanted her to be a show dog, and Rachel seemed very distraught and upset about it. Deciding not to touch the subject, Blade would return home whenever he saw Rachel sulking.

It was during this period of time that a man came into Blade’s family’s makeshift home. His mother and father whispered for the puppies to run and hide with them, but Blade was frozen with fear and couldn’t find the strength to move his feet. It was only a matter of grabbing the small mutt now. The man took Blade and threw him into the back of a truck, taking him to a place that would change him forever. His family didn’t see him for a long period of time after that.

The place he arrived at was underground. It was humid, sticky, and damp. Blade hated the smell of it because it reminded him of other strays like himself that he’d seen on the street who had died from malnourishment. Everywhere he turned the stench was absolutely awful; it was a potent mix of dirty coats, peeled flesh, and blood. He was promptly shoved into a small cage barely big enough to fit him, and waited for what seemed like forever. He got to know a couple dogs there, but few he cared to remember later on, except one who stayed fresh in his memory.

Blade was stuck in his cage growing, and by the time he reached half his full size, he was carelessly flung into the ring with a massive dog who must have weighed three times more than him. He tried dodging the other dog’s attacks, but just wasn’t quick enough. It angered him that he couldn’t get away, until it hit him that it was only one who would get out alive. He was pitted against the other dog for almost an hour before Blade gave up trying to run. He slammed head on into the other dog, making him fall for a split second. He then clung to the other dog’s throat, receiving three wide adjacent gashes on his lower right leg as a desperate attempt to get free. Blade hung on, though, and defied all the odds. He had only his remaining baby teeth to thank – they were still small but razor sharp too.

The three wounds never fully healed, and Blade faced many more fights before finally meeting his future best friend. A Doberman named Will came strolling into the arena, fighting aimlessly to collect a reward. At first, Blade had pegged him as another greedy dog looking for easy money, but when the Doberman noticed him, they both had a long talk before he finally had to depart. He wasn’t bad at all. He had to fight to keep his family alive, and that struck Blade as noble. He never misjudged Will again, but he wished he had the courage to have asked the older dog to let him out.

When it was half a year after Blade’s first birthday, something remarkable happened. He was saved! A huge group of humans infiltrated the arena, obtaining the men who had neglected them so much. Blade and the other dogs were so thankful to the uniformed officers that they didn’t even mind going to the vet for an examination. Blade’s wound was cleaned of infection and he was fed until his belly was its normal size again. The people there took care of him, and for once he was happy. Then something new happened.

After being examined, it was deemed that he was a remarkably fit dog without much of a temper problem. Many of the others Blade had met in the arena were being put down for being too aggressive. Instead of meeting this fate, Blade was assigned a spot in the army. He took it dutifully, glad to have the fighting ring in the past. An entirely new experience of violence awaited him, though. As he stepped onto the battle field with his assigned partner, he gaped at the awful scene he saw. It was like the fighting ring all over again, except there were humans fighting too, which somehow reassured Blade, and it was open. There were no cages.

It was these two facts alone that kept Blade going, and he managed to keep himself and his partner alive easily until a small incident later on. Blade was met with a black dog, whom he would later learn was named Mack. The black dog lunged at him in an attempt to disarm his partner – without Blade, he was at a disadvantage compared to the black dog’s human. Blade struck back defiantly, but was marked forever with a gash on his left eye. He managed to push Mack off of him before he could deliver the fatal bite, but Blade didn’t get the chance to kill him either. He was still on the ground when he noticed Mack’s human aiming a thick gun towards his own. He leaped up and got in the way, for once being as fast as was required, and fell to the ground in a sickening thud. Mack and his human ran off to fight someone else after seeing their half failed attempt, while Blade’s partner ran to his aid.

Blade was put into intensive care after that. Fortunately, the bullet wound only entered his left leg, and he was going to be fine. Although he would have an ‘x’ shaped mark for the rest of his life from the effects of the surgery, Blade thought that just living was fine enough. They also cleaned up the wound inflicted by Mack on his left eye, and Blade’s partner refused to let him back on the field. He was retired by his third birthday; his owner said he didn’t want to put his dog at further risk. He had saved his life and he owed it to Blade to let him live the rest of his.

So Blade was taken back to San Francisco, his original home, a little further off from where the police had found the dog fighting ring. He wandered purposely until he finally found his old home, abandoned. He looked for his cousins and found them right off the bat. Well, one of them. He noticed Grace seeming sad and came to her and asked her what was wrong and how she had escaped from the greedy man. She replied that she had been kidnapped and held for ransom, but escaped through a hold and never went back. She asked Blade if he could intercept her sister, Rachel, who was still stuck at her old home. He did so without question, and when he and the other two finally came back together, there was a huge joyous reunion taking place. Blade showed his cousins around town, thankful that although nightmares from his past may haunt him forever, at least he had two family members left who he knew he could always trust and love forever.

Relatives: Grace [cousin]; Rachel [cousin]

Other: Constantly has nightmares of his time in the war, and is skeptical of Chandler at first because he wears the same collar that Mack did when he had fought him. When he learns what really happened, he and Chandler become good friends. He also still visits his old friend, Will, who still fights but no longer in the old arena Blade grew up in.