| Lance Corporal Marrus 'Choke' Valentine |
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| Tom Hardy as Marrus 'Choke' Valentine |
| Personal |
| Alias: | Choke |
| Age: | 29 |
| Features: | 6'3 Muscular |
| Colony: | Tauron |
| Professional |
| Rank: | Lance Corporal |
| Department: | Marines |
| Position: | Military Police |
Background
'Gorgeous' George Valentine was arguably one of the best fighters the colonies ever knew. Every fight he went into ended in a knockout. Not once did he have a match go into decision. He only lost once. In his entire career. Knocked out in the seventh round. He trained the next year and beat the guy in the preceding three rematches. He was a hero of Tauron, known over the entire colony for his prowess in the ring. Everyone watched his fights. It's not that boxing was the most popular sport, but people just loved him. He had personality, he had a flair for the dramatic. He was a champion in all respects. People adored him, wanted to see what he would say in his post fight interviews, wanted to watch his amazing comebacks. He was Tauron's golden boy.
But as they say, all that glitters… sometimes has a drinking problem.
And Gorgeous George had a hell of a drinking problem. He was taken up by the amount of fame he had, the money he had. And he just had to start gambling. The cliche wouldn't be complete if he didn't start gambling. And so he did. Things weren't bad at first. He was very loose with himself, he had three wives over his lifetime. The last one was the best, in my opinion. That's because the last was my mother. Cerra Humbell-Valentine. A sweet woman, a wonderful woman. A woman who didn't deserve what she got. I was only six when things started going south. Fights were few and far between. But gambling was rampant. I remember one night we slept in a park. They told me we were camping. But I knew what was really going on. We didn't have a place to stay.
And then my father borrowed money from a man named Geevus Sherras. That was the beginning of the end for Gorgeous George Valentine. It didn't take long. Money came in and went out. My father wasn't an earner. Not anymore. Geevus started getting close with the family. He was a charismatic old man. Made my little sisters like him. I wasn't so fast to ease up to the man. Especially after the accident.
They happen in every bad story. The accident which is referred to in the rest of the monologue in the upper case, the pivotal moment in which things go to worse. And this bad story is no different from any other bad story. While they tell me it was an Accident, I'll never really believe it. Not that I'm angry about it. Gorgeous George was a terrible father. Treated my sisters like shit, my wonderful mother even worse. But it was just too.. Convenient. Gorgeous George died in a car accident when I was seven. My mother grieved but.. She had been grieving the last seven years of my life. George made her life a living hell. So.. I won't hold it against her what she did next. Geevus stepped in and took over George's family. My mother was swept off her feet in a flood of cubits and positive attention.
She never could have known that all Geevus wanted.. was me.
In the southwestern quadrant, Melcessia was one of the biggest cities around. And a hub for criminal activity. It turns out Geevus was one of the captains of industry of this hub. A white collar criminal, always dressed to the nines. My poor mother, she eventually died still thinking he was a legitimate businessman. When Geevus entered as my step-father, my destiny was set. I was no longer a child, I was a project.
The year is 2023 AE….
//"Welcome this Cal Trassan, LIVE, with our very own Geevus Sherras. It is a tremendous event today we are attending. The grand opening of the School of Hard Knocks, Geevus' new gym." The wiry man says, standing in front of the large building, a red ribbon tied in front of the door. "Mister Sherras would you like to say anything?"
The older immaculately dressed man smiles politely, leaning over to the crew. "I would just like to thank everyone for coming out. The School of Hard Knocks is a salute to the rising sport in our region the amazing phenomenon of Mixed Martial Arts. As a modern man, I do not want to be behind the times. And I will have the best fighters out in this new and rapidly growing sport."
"Mister Sherras is there any truth that your step-son, the son of the late Gorgeous George Valentine is going to be training at the gym?"
"That's right Cal. Young Marrus is one of our first trainees. We're looking forward to his legacy. He is already showing potential, and I think when he comes of age we will see a fighter ready to follow in Gorgeous George's footsteps, being one of the most explosive fighters around."
"There you have it, exclusively from Cal Trassan at —-" The sound fades//
Things you just hear about, things you see. Television and radio makes them seem so much easier. Not complicated at all. I was being trained to be one of the best fighters in the world. If only that was the only thing that was going on. I would have agreed with everyone else. My life was just fine. But it wasn't. My mother was poisoned. Not really. But.. she might as well have been. Geevus spent so much time doting on her, she never even saw us. She forgot about us. I don't blame her. It was Geevus. He was crafty, a manipulator, he knew exactly what to do. She never stood a chance. She was always off on trips. Romantic getaways. So who raised my siblings? Geevus? That's a joke you don't want to laugh at. To say that Geevus treated them badly would be a lie. He would have had to recognize their existence to do that. He preferred to treat me like the golden goose, the others were just the inevitable packages I brought along with me. So when I came home from training, bruised and bloodied, I would make dinner, I would go over their homework. I would cut their hair. Eventually I got pretty good at cutting my sisters hair. I stayed up with the fashions, I would never let them get picked on just because they looked different. I had to be the father. I was only a couple years older, but I had to be the best big brother I could. I didn't have much life back then. School. Training. My sisters. Sleep. It's all I did until I graduated high school. I didn't have time for friends, no time for social life. I had all I could handle.
When I was eighteen and graduated from high school I got my first job. Of course it was for Geevus Sharras. My training continued, intensified even. But Geevus insisted I earn my keep. He put a gun in my hand. Called me one of his security staff. A bodyguard. They trained me to watch, trained me to get an eye for people that might cause a problem. Constantly watching for danger. Immediately getting an escape plan every time you enter a building, knowing where to go, how to get out. How to best fight back in case something should go down… They called us bodyguards. But every now and then our job descriptions got a little thicker for a couple hours.
It was always with a couple of us. One of us would have a big piece of wood, a crobar, something like that. Guns too, but those weren't used. It was always the weapons that would send a message and keep the guy working the next day. They were shake downs, threats. We ensured that Geevus would get his money from whoever for whatever. I didn't even know why half the time. I just showed up, looked intimidating and watched the older guys put the beat on some poor sap. But it came down to that one time like it often does.
Three of us were supposed to shake down this shop owner who owed Geevus money. Little did we know he had a big family. A lot of members who also happened to be big. We got outnumbered pretty quick. Five guys, all pretty big. That was my first real fight. And it's what made Geevus able to trust me in actual fighting. I was only nineteen at the time. The guys I were with were older. Hardcore fellas. Daryl pulled his gun, but he got taken down by two of them. Yokus had a little more luck. Knocked a guy out with a crobar, hobbled the actual storeowner.
That left me with two. Muscle memory kicked in, a cross, an uppercut, a kick to the side of the head. Before I knew it, I had two guys at my feet. And then I was helping Daryl. We came out mostly unscathed. Geevus said it was all beacause of me. A month later I had my first official underground fight. I knocked the guy out the first round.
Despite my success, Geevus wanted more. He brought in better trainers, the best striking coaches in the business. He poured pounds and pounds of cubits into making me the best I could be. The next few years were a blur. I accelerated into a decent following. I beat every competitor they laid up against me. They weren't all knockouts, some I really had to grind out. And none of them were easy, to be sure. When I wasn't fighting, I was doing errands for Geevus. Wearing a dark suit and being intimidating. It was never anyone very big, always small time crooks. Never anyone that would give us up. We would never get caught like that. When I wasn't being a goon for Geevus I was taking care of my sisters, watching them grow into beautiful young women.
The travelling was incessant. If I didn't have that little instrument to carry around with me, I swear I would have gone insane. But even my music got irritating. My trainers would always get annoyed when I would ask what time it was…
// "This is history! Ladies and gentleman this is Cal Trassan, LIVE. We are witnessing history right now, the youngest Mixed Martial Artist to ever claim the title of Light Heavyweight Champion. Marrus the Morose Valen-tiiiiine!"
Marrus stands in the middle of the cage, blood seeping from his lip, eyes dazedly trying to gather their bearings of the situation….//
Bill gave me a watch. It was broken. He told me by the time I figured it out, we would be there…
// "This is madness! The twenty four year old Marrus Valentine just knocked out the long time light heavyweight champion. We have a new champion ladies and gentleman! We have a new champion!//
It was a long ride. And a long ride after that. And then after that. Every time we went from one fight to the next I just stared at that watch. I read about it, I studied. Spent hours tinkering with the tiny little mechanisms. Eventually I learned to fix it. I clasped back on the shell and turned it over and there was a little.. tick. My greatest accomplishment in my life…
"Marrus Valentine, the champion! The champion!"
I was twenty four when I became the MMA champion. I made Geevus a lot of money. I made myself a lot of money. But it wasn't enough. Geevus wanted more. He wanted a bigger stage. He wanted me to go where my father had gone. To be a silmutaneous champion in two combat sports. The training shifted. I was a master in Ju Jitsu, and several other Martial Arts. I favored striking in my fights, but I was no boxer. Geevus threw every trainer he could on me. I adapted quickly. This one trainer taught me that fighting wasn't just bloodying up another guy. It was an art form. A true expression of one's creativity. Like a painter… Or a sculptor. I liked that. I liked that a lot.
I trained harder.
It paid off. My boxing debut wasn't but a few months later. Geevus wouldn't wait, he had to capitalize on my celebrity on my success. While people still remembered me, he said. The first one went alright. The boxing matches were so much longer. Breathing was difficult in the sixth round. So I ended it in the seventh.
She was beautiful. My first love. Her eyes that made me think of smooth fields. The kind of fields you could spend the whole day in. Just layin, lookin' up at the light. And just layin there you would feel all kinds of comfortable. Like things were just… Warm in the world. Her eyes took the edge off. Made me feel like there was warmth in the world. She came to one of my boxing matches. On my undefeated march towards the championship. I did whatever I could to see her. She was like a drug. I started to realize how Gorgeous George could be dragged away from it all. If alcoholism was anything like this.. I could totally understand how the man could let everything fall to shit. I still trained hard. But my trainer knew I wasn't all there. Knew something was amiss. I didn't care. She made me happier than I had ever been.
The day finally came. The championship. Some guy from Picon. Apparently he was the champion. I knew he couldn't go the distance. I was younger, I was faster, I had the heavier punches. Everyone favored me in the fight. The gambling went into the highstakes. Geevus especially piled on the money. I was going to make a lot of people a lot of money. I was twenty six when I stepped into the ring. I was about to be the new champion. Everything was going great for me…
She came the night before. She gave me a timepiece. Said it was broken. Asked me what time the fight started. I laughed a little before kissing her. Told her I would fix it in time. I spent the whole night working on it. Before dawn came it started to tick again. I never saw her again.
I stepped into the ring. And after the first round, I was knocked out. You know what they say, the bigger they are…
I fell pretty hard.
I went from loved to hated overnight. My name became Choke. Choke Valentine. Or Mister Freeze. Geevus wouldn't even speak to me. He wouldn't look at me. I lost him more cubits than I care to think about. The number people put on me was too high for my recollection. The man who gave me my tatau, who was once honored to do it for me.. I heard he tried to kill himself. That might have been a rumor. Maybe it was because of something else. It still didn't make me feel very good. The hate mail I got in the following days was overwhelming. Food thrown, people screaming. What's worse is some people blamed Geevus. Thought that he had me throw the fight.
Even my sisters treated me like I was some sort of alien. Someone they had never met. And then it happened. A few days after my lost fight, I had to accompany Geevus. He had gotten even more death threats than I had. A man decided to try and act on it. Pulled out a gun, ran on Geevus. And I shot him dead.
It was about then I decided I was done with that life.
Keeping the timepiece from the woman, I left. I left everything. I enlisted with the marines. I excelled in training. But my superiors still hated me. They probably lost money because of me. It was like the rest of my life. No friends, no love. But now I had no family. I had the marines and my work ethic. I worked very hard. I raised a couple of ranks, despite most people around me hating me. And then the cylons came…
I survived. I remember the day clearly. Rushing the civillians out. We got in a transport, I was pulling people in as fast as I could. Pulling, lifting. And then my hand grabbed onto someone very familiar. Geevus Sharras. The man who made me what I was. The man who killed my father. The transport started to pull off. Unfortunately.. I just didn't have enough strength left in my arm to pull the old man up. I dropped him. Surviving was rough, but we pulled it off. A small pocket of us. Fighting here and there. I would go from group to group. Following my superiors orders. Until we were rescued…
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