259-Meggothia

Meggothia is one of the 300 Senate Bounty Hunters in service to the Senate, and is considered one of the most lethal in their employ. He, like 260-Ateriel, uses an Alintean name. "Meggothia" is the Alintean word for "Sorrow" - nobody knows his real name.

Originally from the planet Altar, he was born to the son of a soldier in the Crimsion Dominion. By the time he was four years old, the Azure Empire came sweeping through, killing everyone in his hometown. His parents locked him in a rations barrel to keep him safe while they attempted to defend their home, but to no avail. The Azure Taeski took the rations barrel he was in but, when discovering its contents, abandoned him in the deserts, leaving him to die.

Instead of death, Meggothia chose life, seeking out the Ignis in the nearby mountains. They trained him to fight so that he could cross the deserts, teaching him when and where to use his talents, how to minimize the damage his Cyulei could cause, and to properly harness his Dryulei. They also taught him much of his education, including combat tactics, mathematics, language, mythology and classical Taeski literature. Meggothia left the Ignis settlement at the age of twenty-two, trekking across Altar until he made contact with another Crimson Dominion outpost. From there, he left Altar, determined to leave his past behind him and start a new life somewhere else.

He eventually found his way to Nihran where he enlisted in the Legion of Twilight, serving as a Special Tactics Commander. After buying a home in Upper Namrah, he eventually settled down and married Arelir, a female Taeski who worked at the Ninth Rakhim. Between them, they had three children. Arelir's father also lived with them during this period.

To his horror, three years after his marriage, Meggothia returned home to find his entire family slaughtered in their home. The only clue left behind was an Erythian Arc-knife bearing the markings of ETF Kirel. Before he could even begin to exact his revenge, however, Meggothia was arrested, tried and found guilty of the murder of his family. He was shipped back to Altar where he was imprisoned in the Ranait Mining Shaft, forced to work long shifts extracting palladium from the ground. As was customary with murderers, they drove two massive steel bolts through his right forearm, permanently fastening the shackle and the twenty foot iskindite chain to his arm.

For the next twenty-five years, Meggothia never saw the sun. He spent his entire lift at the bottom of the shaft, never speaking a word to any of his fellow prisoners. Widely regarded as a calm mute, the other prisoners left him to his own devices. The guards saw him as easy to manage, as he gave them virtually no trouble, which led to a certain degree of complacency. The sole fact that kept Meggothia sane was the fact that he was innocent and knew it.

One day, when the guards came to collect him, Meggothia prepared his escape. The moment they unlocked his chain from the wall, he snapped it free from the guard before wrapping it around his neck, killing the hapless sentry instantly with a twist of his wrist. He stormed from the cell, keeping the chain moving at all times, and managed to kill seventeen more guards before bringing down an excavation crane, preventing the guards from reaching him. He then used the chain to make his escape, racing away across Altar's vast deserts without a backwards glance. Due to the fact that the Ranait Mining Shaft was located in such a distant location, Meggothia was presumed dead. No guards gave chase.

No one knows precisely what happened to him, but ETF Kirel suddenly met an inexplicable end, all of their autopsies revealing that they had been killed with an Arc-knife before even drawing their weapons. The Erythian Consort ordered an investigation into their deaths, reforming ETF Kirel under a new Commander. This group, too, was slaughtered by the same fiend before their fifth mission. Rumors began to circulate that Kirel was cursed, and enlistment began to plunge. Publicly, ETF Kirel was removed from the books and declared annuled. It was rebuilt as a deep-cover shadow-ops team, placed in the capable hands of Commander Bordra. They were instructed to remain off the radar while another group - ETF Cassat - investigated the asteroid fields where the planet Fezon had once been, and where Kirel's first massacre had taken place.

Before ETF Cassat was butchered, they transmitted the location of a facility on one of the asteroid fragments. Two Senate Hunters - 256-Morceti and 300-Avogar - were dispatched to investigate the coordinates. There, they discovered the ruins of a biosphere - a remnant from Fezon - which had been repaired and refitted with parts of various spacecraft parts. Within, the two hunters found Meggothia, still wearing tatters of his polyform and prison garb. He had attached an Erythian Arc-knife to the end of his chain, and made it into his signature weapon. He also possesses a variety of other tools which he can switch out for the knife, including a Thunderfire weapon and a hook.

Morceti readied herself to attack, but Meggothia unslung his chain from his arm and defeated her with little to no effort. Avogar stopped him before he killed her, suggesting that rather than freelance in his quest to wipe Kirel from the map, perhaps he could use the resources of a Senate Hunter.

Meggothia was brought back to the Senate, where they offered him the choice between becoming a Senate Hunter or returning to the Ranait Mining Shaft. Meggothia accepted the former, donning the mantle of 259-Meggothia, and was assigned to the same group as Avogar and Morceti.

Much later, when Edge and Pearl were recruited, Meggothia and Morceti were dispatched to retrieve them. Meggothia expressed surprise at being bested by Edge, but later admitted that he was also trying NOT to kill him. He and the black hunter formed something of a Master-Student relationship, if not a tenuous one, and when Edge was slated for execution after being exposed as Richard, it was Meggothia's idea to break him out. He killed 001-Bleak to make a statement, which incited the event known as the Schism. He later helped Edge break the Ghost out of docks and fled with him.

During the Tenth Galactic War, Meggothia reappears wearing a Mark IX Edge Suit customized for his Taeski heritage and his chain-weapon. He takes command of the Gray Syndicate troops on Sernomir, fighting off the Senate forces during their attack, and later joins Edge when he attempts to recover Earth from Senate control. Meggothia also aided Edge during his attack on Krell, fighting 015-Vak Tzimar in order to buy Edge time to reach the Senate and end the war. Meggothia's activities after the war are unknown.

It is also worth noting that he and Morceti are somewhat of a pair, similar to Edge and Pearl. The two compliment each other well, but are not romantically involved like their armored counterparts. Instead, Meggothia regards Morceti with something of a cool, fatherly air. She, on the other hand, never grows tired of attempting to seduce the older Taeski, despite his continued rejection of her.