Tal 'Zerex

"The galaxy gave up on me a long time ago"

- Tal Zerex

Tal is a Sangheili mercenary famous for his renegade actions during the events following the Human Covenant war. After being abandoned during the Battle of New Jerusalem Tal left the covenant and fled to the renegade sectors to carve out a life as a ruthless mercenary.

Early Life
Tal Zerex was born during the early years of the 1st Age of Reclamation, the year 2525 on the human calendar, to the line of Zerex in Sangheilios’s northern province. As a young Sangheili Tal showed a strangely inquisitive nature, he would often question things he was told even if it meant a clip around the ear. He would also spend much his time in Zerex’s extensive librum where he would read up on many topics. He mainly enjoyed the stories about ancient Sangheili myths and heroes of legend.

The one thing that really sent Tal apart from the other children of the keep was his lacking sense of honor. While he believed that you should be respect full to others Tal never understood why his fellow brothers put such emphasis on it or what relevance it had with war. He of course kept this to himself. Tal’s combat skills were impressive though unorthodox; he preferred to win his battles with his mind not his strength alone and his fighting style focused on disabling his opponent before striking the killer blow, something his peers and elders found to be dishonorable.

Teenage Years
When he was 16 a great tragedy befell the young sangheili. At the time the Zerex keep had been in conflict with another keep over resources in the area which had begun over a single mistranslated. This keep decided that it would ensure the resources would stay in their hands by obliterating the Zerex keep. A few weeks earlier Zerex had sent a large amount of warriors to fight with the covenant and so were unprepared and undermanned when a large force charged their position. The battle lasted about 6 hours and after which the keep of Zerex was reduced to rubble and ash. Tal at the time was out on a walk and returned to see his home in flames. Shocked Tal ran. He fled to a nearby city. Tal was left alone in the world with no one to turn to and no one to help him.

Disheartened Tal wandered into the city states, living a street urchin’s life in the state of Vadam. He had sunk to the lowest point in society living off stolen food and constantly in danger of being imprisoned or worse, killed. After two years of living on the streets Tal decided to try and enlist in the covenant army. He was deemed worthy and was sent to the Sangheili Academy for training. There his lacking sense of honor became a problem. During his first lessons he gained a reputation as an honor-less cur that had no right to be here. Tal would often be picked on and the master of the station, Field Master Kar Batonee would punish him regularly. Tal felt abandoned and his cold sense of despair became a seething hatred. He stayed on the station however and completed his training, earning at least the indifference of Batonee for his tenacity.

Abandoned
Tal’s first mission as part of the covenant was to locate and capture a forunner relic on a human world called New Harmony. Tal’s strike force crashed down in the main metropolis of the planet, they began their search for the artifact. About three cycles into the search news came of a large human counter force had just translated in system as well as the fact that the relic had been located. Tal’s strike force was ordered to move to the artifact and help secure it. On the way they were attacked by ODST’s that had dropped from the counter force and made it impossible for the Sangheili to get to their objective. After fighting off the humans Tal was the last survivor of the fire fight. He heard over the radio that the artifact had been lost and that the covenant was pulling out. Anyone left on the planet was deemed an accepted loss.

Tal managed to make it to a downed but still operational phantom and was able to coerce it into life. However as he took off the dropship was hit by a rocket round that exploded near the cockpit. Tal was showered with shrapnel that tore into the left side of his face and lodged in his back, right arm and both legs. Going on sheer will power alone Tal was able to make it to the last covenant ship as it made ready to leave. Once aboard the ship he collapsed and was taken to the med bay. As the Huragok begun to rebuild his shattered limbs and torn face with cybernetics, Tal lay in a state of semi-consciousness. He was lucid enough to think on what had happened and realized that the covenant were no better than the keep he had called home all so long ago. They were patching him up just to send him to die again.

Tal resolved to abandon the covenant and sangheili society all together. Once the most rudimentary reconstructive surgery was complete Tal demanded to be released, arguing that he wanted his scars and cybernetics to be a mark of pride. They were for him the start of his new life. The Huragok eventually relented and Tal was released. Once out he went to the armory where he took as many weapons and supplies as he could carry before stealing a shuttle and escaping into the void.

In the shadows
Tal spent the next decade and a half wandering the galaxy alone. He took up work as a solider for hire. During this time he worked with human insurrectionists and Kig-yar pirates, anyone who could offer him supplies or money. Tal speaks very little of these times leading to a certain amount of inaccuracy as to what he really did. It is known that he was mostly on the run, fleeing the covenant forces in his area so that he wasn't killed for heresy and desertion. At some point he also met the human captain Jason Galloway. During their short meeting they because friends though Tal declined travelling with him. Though there is no real evidence for it there are theories abound that he was present during the innsurection on Mamore and the battles of reach and earth. Though to what capacity remains unknown. For the better part of two decades Tal Zerex disappeared from the galaxy.

Gladiator
The next time the galaxy heard anything of Tal Zerex was in 2556 on the renegade city station of Renegade City. The city was positioned out in the Frontier where even during the covenant's occupation of that portion of the galaxy all manner of species had come to the gargantuan station. It was here that Tal was making a new name for himself. Captured by pirates two years previously, they had sold him on the owner of the gladiatorial arena, the Kig-yar Raa-Ursk, in exchange for a healthy sum of credits.

In the arena Tal quickly rose through the ranks, becoming a favorite of the crowd and the owners of The Pits. Tal would spend the next three years in The Pits, matching his skill at arms against anything that could be thrown at him. Eventually he was the highest ranking and most successful fighter in the arena. It was during this time that Tal became addicted to Red Dawn, a combat enhancement drug popular among the fighters and owners as it made a much more entertaining fight.

As per the laws of the arena the most successful fighter, if not bought, can demand a 'Freedom Fight' where by if the fighter wins he is released. Tal decided that he wanted to have his life back and so stormed into Ursk's hall and demanding the fight. Ursk agreed and decided to pit Tal against one of his Lekgolo bodyguard Ungda Nora Pauu.

The fight was bitter, Tal used all the skills he had learnt in the arena but was only able to defeat the hunter by tripping it up with his energy staff and then tearing the alpha worm from his back. Raa had assumed that Ungda would win. Not wishing to let the other fighters gain any hope of escape the jackal declared that Tal had cheated and ordered his retinue to kill him. Angered by this Tal used the syringe of Red Dawn to let him fight his way to the jackal before impaling him with his energy staff. The other quaking jackals allowed the sangheili to leave without incident.

Personality and Traits
"I'm not entirely sure what I did to deserve what happened to me. I the end you just learn to live with the pain and the grief. It's the one constant in a hateful universe"

- Tal to Jason Galloway

Personality
"I'm a drug addicted, self-hating, exiled sangheili mercenary. I spend most of my days looking for work or making sure I have a good supply of Red Dawn. I haven't had a good cause to fight for for my whole life and the galaxy has made multiple attempts to remove me."

- Tal talking about the state of his life

Quotes
"I accept that there are….moral ambiguities to the things that I do. But I've always thought that morality is mostly subjective. ‘One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’ as the humans say. So while to most people see me as a murderer, a pirate and a renegade. Others will see me as a peace keeper, savior and revolutionary."

- Tal talking about his stance on morality

"The mistake your making is that you think I sauntered vaguely downwards to the hellish existence I currently inhabit. But in actual fact I was thrown down here before I fully understood where I was, and then when I tried to climb out I was kick down again."

- Tal on why he lives the way he does

"No! No! Don't you dare leave us here! Damn you do you hear me! A thousand hell's await you!"

- Tal, when he was abandoned on New Jerusalem

"I have had two families in the past, both have betrayed me. And while you are the one being that has shown me true compassion I don't think I can ever be a part of a group until I have fully let go of my past."

- Tal when offered a place on Jason Galloway's smuggling ship