Character Name: Mark Ratthaniel
Board Name: Lemonade Kitty
Character Gender: Male
Character Age: 22
Zoids: Hellcat + Shield Liger
AIM Screenname: MRatthaniel
Referred By:

Character Description:
Subject Exhibit A is Mark Ratthaniel, 22 year old humanoid male of below average height, below average weight, and dramatically below average income. It should be noted at this point that his short hair is blonde, and it's spikyness is in fact achieved by Mark's refusal to wash it, and not by hair gel. Also note his tendency to wear predominantly tracksuit clothes no matter what the weather is, and his insistance on wearing a blue leather jacket over the top of it. The color of the tracksuit clothes appears to change by the day, thus proving that he does indeed have more than one set of clothes. Pity they're all tracksuits. Note also the distinct lack of machineguns, machetes, katanas and pistols. Mark does indeed have a weapon - a .44 Derringer. It is almost always unloaded, and Mark have never been confirmed to have fired it. Exactly how Mark acquired this weapon is unknown.

Observations of his personality reveal that he is a quiet, withdrawn person, who prefers to avoid extreme social situations. Part of this is due to his secluded upbringing, partly it is due to genetics. He is the sort of person who, although he can certainly think very ill of a person, is too smart, or cowardly, to tell them. He's a friendly sort, but a very cautious one, who views all interactions with suspicion and tries to get them over with as soon as possible.

As a person from the Zoid academy said, "Mark would be a Grade A student, if only he had the ambition". That's what Mark lacks, ambition. Ask him why he's sitting in a Zoid, and he'll blink several times, before finally shrugging his shoulders. "Because it's there." He has no real desire to actually win a battle, to be the best in the world, to prove himself worthy of his father's attention, he just basically does it to pass the time. For something he simply does to pass the time, however, he is certainly quite enthusiastic about it.

Mark is a strong believer that the future is not set in stone. He calls himslf a pessimistic realist, always expecting something bad to happen, and being pleasently stunned when it doesn't. This accounts for his somewhat cynical view on life and his neutral view of the current political state of affairs.

Over the three years training at the academy, Mark has learned enough to know how to survive in the so called real world. He has no real house of his own, and thus lives either in his own Gustav or in quarter star hotels.

History:
There are those who start from rags and rise to riches. They start off with junk Zoids and end up piloting Berserk Furies, winning every battle they ever enter, and sipping champagne out of solid gold cups.

And then there are those who start from the middle, spiral down to rags through no fault of their own, and spend several years there before they can even start rising even to slightly less raggy. Mark Ratthaniel falls into such a case. He was the only child of an overpossessive father who was terrified of the chaotic world of the outside, where people walked around in multi ton machines and filled each other full of bullets. He wanted no part of it, and tried to shield Mark from it all by essentially banning him from ever setting foot outside the house door.

This did not stop Mark, however, from going out through his room window. Which he did, nearly every night, without his father noticing. Years of being shut off from the rest of society had made Mark terrified of people, but the local Zoid repair garage was different. Zoids were silent, mute creatures that didn't move. This meant that there was no way for a Zoid to insult you and make you feel insignificant. It didn't take long for Mark to be discovered by the repairmen, but rather than throwing the young man out on his ear, they let him sit and watch them work.

Eventually, however, his father caught on to Mark's escapades, when Mark fell asleep one day at the garage. The repurcussions were dramatic - his father, furious, charged into the room Mark was sleeping in. Mark awakened instantly and ran back home with the speed of an olympic sprinter, only to be captured when he fell over a crate of oranges. Showing great self control, his father waited until the two of them were back in the privacy of home, and then finally went berserk on his son, wielding his belt like a whip.

It was at this moment that Mark decided to leave. The very next night, he went to the Zoid garage and asked for a Zoid. When they refused, he stole the first Zoid he could - a Shield Liger - and charged off into the distance, non caring of where he was going, but almost magically heading straight towards Delpoi.

Mark's original idea had been to sell the Shield Liger for money, but as he explored city after city a new plan began to form. Somehow or other, Mark would acquire a second Zoid, and then he'd join the Zoid Battle Commission and become a certified Zoid pilot.

For a person who was extremely shy around people, and who was being chased by at least two different people (his father, and whoever used to own that Shield Liger), this would prove to be not the most reliable career move.

Three years have now passed. By some miracle, Mark is still alive, and has even managed to get enough money to buy a Hellcat as well as his Liger. Newly graduated from the Zoid Academy, Mark is equipped with the skills needed to pilot both Zoids more or less successfully, and he's ready to try his luck.