A Closer Look: Xbalanque

(Today we cover another player character, James, the Earth Spirit.)

Fenrir File: 420

Area of Origin: San Miguel, El Salvador. Born 04/28/2076 (Age: 24) Blood Type: AB-

Background: The Earth Spirit (Psychic Abilities: Psi-Barrier, Energy Barrier, Minor Healing, and Sense Xenomorph)

Spirin Bonded: Tlaltecuhtli (Tlalt.) (Raw Earth/Earth, Feral Spirit + Enhanced Human Synergy)

Jaeger: Spiked Mictlantecuhtli (Mict.)  (Rebuilt Mk. 80)

(Entry photo into X-Com.)

Basics: Xbalanque, born Gorge Luis Gonzales, began developing intense psychic abilities before he became a teenager. His first official act of heroism is recorded by the El Salvadoran special forces, where he forced himself on a 'hive cleaning crew' and helped the team dispatch the hive efficiently. His ability to 'hear' the xenomorph threat was invaluable, and he earned the name 'Xbalanque,' a name of a Mayan God of Heroism, and young Gorge has stuck with it ever since. Official records are spotty for the next several years, but his Spirin recently contacted the X-Com project through the spirin collective, and convinced them of his immense worth. So X-Com expended much more resources than was necessary to bring the young mystic into the X-Com project, and they purchased an incomplete Jaeger from the Peruvian Government, and finished it, giving the new recruit a cheaper, but still effective, Jaeger.

(The legs are shiny and new, everything else has seen better days.)

Full Back Story:  Born Gorge Luis Gonzales in a small village north of San Miguel, a bustling town in El Salvador. Gorge grew up loving soccer(football for non-americans.), being an active child, and loving the old myths of his mixed Mayan and Aztec heritage. While he was always different even as a child, not fitting in entirely, it started to become clear to young Gorge in the 10-12 age range, when he began to hear things… whispers on the wind… at first, Gorge didn’t understand what was happening, but eventually he understood them to be the surface thoughts of those around him. He hated it… it horrified him. The influx of voices maddening… So as a young man he would spend time out of the village, exploring Mayan Ruins near the Honduran border. In the ruins he would hear other… more ancient voices… memories locked in the stones of the ruins themselves… the life force sacrificed on those stones imprinted the emotion, the memories… and Gorge could hear them… and other voices too… Ancient voices… of spirits that take on the forms of life itself. 

When Gorge turned 14, he wanted to please the ancient voices he was hearing, so he took the family goat to an ancient Mayan temple, over 50 miles away, and sacrificed the poor creature, bleeding it out down the ancient steps. He heard many voices, including his family pets… and the ancient voices were angry… it was the wrong sacrifice. 

(Something like this.)

His family found him over the body, yelling at it and the stone around him, and so they, being a traditional Catholic family, sought out the local priest, and an exorcism was performed. Such intense thought was easy for the young man to read… to feel the emotions… and the fear… such fear of the unknown. 

Over the next four years, all of High School, Gorge’s powers intensified, he could tell more and more of a person’s mind, and hear the thoughts of his classmates… and it was nothing but fear, the women were full of fear, of men, of kaiju, xenomorphs, foreign folk… the men, full of pride, self-worth, all as a cover for their fear. Gorge would see so few who could overcome their basic fear, and not cower… but as Gorge matured, as he grew, he drew strength from that fear… he would challenge the arrogance of bullies, show them their fears. As he got into scrapes at school, and in sports, he was learning to shield himself with his mind. Blows would lessen, sometimes just glance right off, and Gorge started becoming known around school as someone tough as nails… and when a xenomorph hive was found near the village, Gorge forced himself onto the clearing crew, ‘hearing’ the xenomorphs… while the military men were not wanting to take the high schooler on, his uncanny ability to detect the xenomorphs was invaluable, and they cleared the hive with no casualties, the young man healing the one soldier who took a xenomorph tail in the gut.

The xenomorph leapt upon the squad leader, Colonel Louis Ramos, and plunged his tail into his stomach. Gorge leapt at it, before anyone else reacted, kicking the xenomorph hard in the face, and pushing the soldier away from the monster while the other soldiers rained bullets upon it. He channeled his energy into reforming the flesh… taking away the pain. He felt the intensity in his own mind, the searing pain… and other memories. With a gritting of his teeth, and an intense removal of his hands, with sweat dripping off his brow, the soldier’s stomach was sealed, a jagged scar where the open, bleeding wound was moments earlier.

(Do not try to kick in the face unless there is no other option.)

 The El Salvadoran special forces agent, Colonel Louis Ramos, called young Gorge Xbalanque, saying he embodied the spirit of heroism, going fearlessly, unarmed, into a hive of xenomorphs voluntarily. Gorge liked the name, and started using it on his online profiles, game accounts, and the like… and kept loose online contact with the Colonel.

When he graduated high school, he decided to spend the summer exploring the ruins nearby his home. He found that during his travels, he would be compelled by visions in the ruins… ancient memories living on in the stone… to practice shamanism, to listen to the voices of the world… he could hear the Earth itself it seemed, the Earth mother Gaia, and the voices of the spirin creatures… and so, after partaking of an intense vision quest fueled by jungle mushrooms, Gorge abandoned his name, and became fully Xbalanque, and left, on foot, walking 400 miles north, to the Yucatan Pennisula.

His senses, and the voices on the wind, drove him to a ruin deep in the rainforests… deep into the still not fully explored heart of the Mayan empire. The voices on the wind became as one, a deep, grumbling voice, like the slow grind of the plates of the ocean floor… deep, grinding, like a whale almost. It drove Xbalanque on, calling him by that name, leading him to an ancient ruin hundreds of miles from civilization. Xbalanque could sense the occasional xenomorph mind, one began hunting him, and he was forced to run from the creature, hitting it with a tree branch in the face and swinging over a waterfall by a vine to escape. He eventually made his way to a large Mayan temple. Deep inside, he found a talisman, to an Aztec God, in a Mayan temple…    

(The physical embodiment of Earth)

He could hear the xenomorph as it entered the temple. The same one he had hit with a branch. It had taken it rather personally. Xbalanque felt a tinge of fear, and grabbed the talisman. Holding the talisman, Xbalanque heard the voice. A deep, rumbling voice, male in sound, "It is time," the voice says. Then Xbalanque turns, fist becoming as stone, slowly spreading up his body, and a writhing, dark, dangerous form leaps up from the shadows, hissing menacingly. Xbalanque swings his fist down, like a hammer, smashing the xenomorph down with the talisman, empowered by the stone fist. Slowly, the stone begins to cascade around the young man’s entire body, encasing the shoulder, neck, and traveling down, slowly growing over his body. With the human left hand reaching down, Xbalanque grabs the writhing tail, and with a mighty yell, turns with all his might, slamming the creature down onto the pedestal that was until moments ago holding the talisman. The creature tries to leap up, secondary jaw snapping in front of Xbalanque’s face, tapping lightly the stone forming over his nose. A grin forms on the stone face, and the left hand, now solid stone, releases the tail and delivers a massive left hook to the monstrous Xenomorph head. Raising the talisman above his head, and with strength of the earth itself, the flat, round talisman is brought down onto the chest of the creature, breaking its ribs, caving in the sternum, and crushing the heart itself. Xbalanque feels the acid burning his fist... but the talisman is unharmed.

A voice then echoes in his mind, "Place me on the heart." Doing so, the Xenomorph writhes, and a strange blue/green ethereal energy begin to fill the ancient stone room. The stone begins to drop off, the skin unharmed underneath, and the Xenomorph screams... writhes... And slowly, the acid blood starts flow down the altar, slowly burning into the earth...The body seems to start to cave in completely on itself, fade into blue/green energy, and flow into the ancient talisman. 

The room seems to return to relatively normal, and the voice entered the young man’s mind once more. "You are the one I have been looking for. The mind of Xbalanque. Take up the power of Gaia. I am the Earth's Defender, Tlaltechutli, and I have chosen you as my champion.” Leaving the ancient ruin, Xbalanque walked a year and a half, making his own Macuahuitl on the way, studying shamanism, warfare, and hunting with the tribes he found along the way, before one fateful day in Ecuador. 

In the forest, he found a beautiful woman, dressed in next to nothing, which wasn’t unusual for indigenous peoples he’d met along the way, only she… she was something exceptional. Beautiful beyond compare, but also a mother of a 6 year old girl… both of whom Xbalanque discovered very shortly after meeting them had a psychic gift similar to his. 

(Love at first telepathic sight.)

Xbalanque fell very hard for Rosa, and she fell for him as well, being a lonely widow herself. Xbalanque and Rosa raised her daughter, Emma, together in that village in the heart of the Rainforest in Ecuador. Xbalanque finally felt like he had a family, his gifts were also respected in the village, and he and Rosa were both being trained in the ancient art of shamanism and herbalism. For an entire year, Xbalanque was happy. A father, a lover, a healer of the whole village… he adopted the entire place, and couldn’t leave. All that changed one day though… one horrible day. Xbalanque was out gathering medicinal herbs in the forest, when his xenomorph sense went haywire… he could hear them… and they were hunting. 

Tlalt empowered Xbalanque, giving him increased endurance and strength, and the pair ran back to the village. He could see several dead men, hunters trying to defend the others, but the bulk of the village was getting carried off by the horrible, black, rubbery skinned invaders. Xbalanque only slowed for a moment before rushing the closest he could see, catching it by surprise with a massive smash from his Macuahuitl. Acid began burning his club, and the xenomorph, skull completely caved in, acid spraying, spun around, flying over 10 feet before falling lifelessly to the ground. Xbalanque concentrated on the acid burning his club and his body from the flying xenomorph, and a shimmer formed over him, the acid falling harmlessly off it, and his club. (Energy Shield) 

(The 'Spirin Merged' form.)

Reaching down, he grabbed a rock, and pressed it to his holy symbol, Tlalt’s energy moving from Xbalanque to the stone/symbol, starting to take shape. Xbalanque then tossed the shifting, forming rock golem into the Xenomorphs, the small golem popping out, tackling one, causing him to drop the young child being carried. 

Xbalanque focused his mind, increasing his kinetic barrier, before rushing to Tlalt’s aid. While they managed to free a few villagers, the bulk, Rosa and Emma, included, were being hauled away. After killing 3 Xenomorphs between the two of them, Xbalanque’s Macuahuitl had burned away, despite his energy shielding. Tlalt remerged into Xbalanque, preparing for Earth Knight, and running after the hive of Xenomorphs… the screams of the villagers, but more importantly, the emotions… the fear of his fellow psychically gifted family, the thoughts of Rosa… and Emma… echoing through the trees… shouting on the wind. 

Xbalanque ran for several miles, Tlalt’s endurance enhancing merge keeping him on their heels. As Xbalanque approached a large clearing, at the base of a mountain, he could hear intense thoughts… the thoughts of many, many more xenomorphs… and in the clearing, in front of a cave, stood a xenomorph queen. Stone began forming up the legs, and over the arms, when a  Xenomorph came leaping from the cave. Xbalanque smashed the creature down, then raised a stone foot, smashing it on the back of the Xenomorph, breaking its back, smashing its organs, and causing it to scream in pain as the stone form completed over Xbalanque. Xbalanque took a few strides before roaring at the queen. He could see villagers getting taken into the darkness of the cave beyond… and the Queen approached. 

With speed Xbalanque was not expecting at all, the tail pierced right through the 2 kinetic barriers, the stone, right into his heart and out his back. The stone began dropping off his shoulders immediately, Tlalt starting to try and save his host. Xbalanque then heard Emma’s voice. “PAPA!” 

He looked up, and with great strength, gripped the tail with his left stone hand, and swung his right with all his might, chopping the tail right off. He ignored the pain, and the blood pumping from his pierced heart, being kept pumping by Tlalt. The Queen reared back, screaming, and he could see Rosa and Emma vanishing in the darkness, hear their thoughts… the fear… 

(The 'Earth Knight' form)

Charging, ignoring the acid blood the queen was flinging at Xbalanque, and pulled the massive bladed tail from his heart, holding it like a sword in his right hand. The earth fell off completely, Xbalanque kept running, the queen lunged forward, and Xbalanque swung the tail, hitting it in the side of the face, a clear cut bleeding on the creatures face. It screamed, and turned to go back into the cave. Xbalanque was about to throw the tail at the queen, when two more xenomorphs charged him. Xbalanque impaled one, and the other raked his claws across his back… drawing an enormous amount of blood. Xbalanque took the tail blade from the dead xenomorph, and thrust it into the xenomorphs hissing mouth, ripping through the top of its skull. Xbalanque began to lose consciousness, the damage becoming too great to keep going… Tlalt starting taking over the fading mind…

And he awoke later in the mountains. He made his way to Machu Pichu, Peru, protecting who he could… and trying to deal with the pain in his heart… both from the alien tail and his lost family… He has most recently defeated 4 xenomorphs, and after his spirin Tlalt communicated with the spirin collective… Xbalanque needed a change of pace, and a way to actually help those he needed to. He negotiated the evacuation of the entire city of Aquas Calientes, and X-Com went ahead and purchased Peru’s incomplete Jaeger, at double the cost… and finished it, readying it for X-Com’s newest secret weapon… the next step in human/spirin evolution.