Columbus Tenerenae

Backstory

Columbus is an outwardly quiet man, who doesn't let on to he truly is to anyone but his closest friends. He is incredibly wise, but also polarisingly childish. A lot of his complex and often guarded personality is due to trauma he endured growing up.

When he was quite young, he often protected his younger brother, Benny from onslaughts of parental abuse from his father, Thomas "Z" Tenerenae. When his dad eventually left their family, Columbus and Benny were left in the hands of their mother, who wasn't a particularly bad parent, but from her own trauma, failed to raise them properly. This left Columbus to raise his brother, and also himself, meaning he had no time to be a child and instead took on the burden of adulthood from before he was an adolescent.

He grew up alone this way, with only his brother by his side. However, Benny resented him because of Columbus' cold, isolating demeanour, and therefore, Columbus began to dislike his brother also.

At the age of 14, he made the decision to leave his family behind and live on his own, retreating into the forests of his hometown, Optimumterrae. There, he almost perished after losing his belongings to Forest Kin (kids who live in the forests of Optimumterrae) during an attack, and receiving deadly wounds across his body. This is where he met the great Guardian, Dex, who promised him retribution and revenge on his father, in trade for Columbus' work as a personal mercenary. Dex trained him mercilessly, both emotionally and physically. Columbus endured this for 5 years of his life, nearly dying countless times as he became almost completely desensitised to pain and trauma.

When Columbus turned 19, Dex embued him with Dark Anima-Core Energy, allowing him to change himself into a second form of choice at will. Due to his will to push through the painstakingly difficult training, Columbus' vessel was able to flawlessly hold and generate Anima-Core Energy - something humans usually can never achieve. Columbus chose a tyrannosaurid dinosaur, and then began training in this form.

Anima-core energy is a primal energy, meaning it can create emotional damage if it circulates in the brain for too long. Columbus trained himself too hard, meaning the Anima-core energy lingered in his mind, creating horrifically vivid imagery of past trauma. This eventually pushed Columbus into 'Eruption' - the trauma 'erupting' from the synapses in his brain, and he began to hallucinate his trauma, and quite literally relive it again. This caused him to storm his hometown in a blind rage, stumbling through buildings and lashing out at everything in sight, fighting the memories, as he unknowingly destroyed Optimumterrae.

Running off pure, primal fear, he accidentally killed 5 people, injuring 16 others. Eventually, Quinn [REDACTED] stopped him, fighting with him until Columbus' energy ran dry, and Quinn exceeded Mode X, blowing out his eyes. For Columbus' crimes, he was sentenced to live on Malum by Casus, as was Quinn for his collateral damage. Benny however, stepped up in Columbus' place, sealing their fate on Malum.

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Creation

Columbus was created on the 18th of November, 2016. He was incorporated into the Anima universe immediately, and quickly became my comfort/vent character, as I related to him the most out of all of my characters at the time. I developed him the most from 2017-2019, as I began to write most of the timeline for Anima. He is a manifestation of both my depression, and what I sought after in a best friend back when I was developing him. A lot of his backstory is heavily inspired by real world songs in the metal-dubstep genre, namely Sullivan King.