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I am so sorry I forgot to post this yesterday, but it’s here today along with the final post of my Launch Week Character Posts.

The purple-skinned, silver veined original Hunter isn’t widely known, not even in Zagerah, the prison he was named after. Or perhaps the prison was named after him.

No one really knows.

None of the Hunters really know about Zagerah, let alone who he is, where he comes from, or why he looks the way he does. In Hunter, it’s quickly discovered what his silver veins can do and everyone regrets that they ever found out in the first place.

Zagerah existed before even Hindah did, back in a time before the prison was ever built. At this time, the Aretul lived in scattered factions with some villages following one or another. It was a period of intense war and one particular Aretul faction wanted to create the perfect being to slaughter their enemies and rule the planet. More than that, they wanted a being so perfect and so powerful that they could ensure no one would ever rebel or take it from them again.

The first several Hunters were completely different from the ones we know today. They had no special abilities; just speed and strength and even that came with a terrible price; mutations both physical and mental. They were sent out among the villages to kill those who fought back and resisted, sent to assassinate and kill the Aretul’s enemies, including other factions.

But none of them were perfect and what was worse, none of them could be controlled. However, that is a story for another time, another book and that isn’t why we’re here.

Zagerah’s father was a cruel man so he ran away in hopes of having a different life. His father soon caught him and punished him severely for what he did. A few months later, his father sold him to a different Aretul faction to try for peace. They treated him cruelly, so one day, he killed his new masters and ran away.

After running for so many hours that he exhausted himself, Zagerah fell into a deep pit and ended up beneath the labs where the Aretul constantly worked to create the perfect Hunter. At the bottom of the pit, rocks made from a magical silver ore pierced his skin and grew into him. Zagerah lived through the process, but the Aretul found him and wanted to test these strange silver rocks.

It was soon discovered that whenever he touched any of the other experiments, he could control them. Whenever he stopped, unfortunately, so did his control over them.

The Aretul spent years trying to figure out a way to make it permanent. Cutting the silver out of his body not only nearly killed him, even with smaller pieces removed, but placing them inside someone else never allowed him to control them. They realized they needed a way to make the silver rocks come alive, but how?

One Aretul scientist was so desperate for the perfect Hunter that he experimented on himself. This mutation developed within his mind and he became crazy but had the ability over purple fire. One day, he shrugged his shoulders and thought, “Why not?”

He burned Zagerah alive. Nearly dead, the other Aretul managed to save Zagerah’s life but he was in recovery for years. Despite his health, the experiment had worked. The purple fire melted the special silver rocks until they literally became the liquid running through his veins, coloring them silver. Because he had been hit with silver fire, the burn scares were purple, making his skin appear purple colored.

When he recovered enough for them to test it, they and Zagerah all realized he could slide the silver liquid out of his body and use it to control the other experiments. This still didn’t solve how all their experiments became failures with mutations and there was one more problem.

Eventually, his liquid silver drained from their bodies and his control over them ended. So the Aretul scientists figured out how to make a chip that held the liquid silver. Implanting this chip inside the failed Hunters allowed Zagerah to control them. The Aretul labs soon learned that erasing an experiment’s memory made the Hunters more loyal to them, so they only used Zagerah’s controlling technique as a failsafe in case they ever tried to rebel.

Soon, one of their own volunteered for an experiment and his became the first to have strength and speed without a mutation of any kind. More than that, he developed a strange new ability, all without a mutation; he became the first Hunter…

Hindah.

The rest is history.

Of course, to read the rest of it, buy Hunter now from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

The first four people who comment on this post will win a free character card with Zagerah’s picture on it, which has never been seen before!