Roland Gates

Roland Gates was born to the realm of Eos, a realm of constant conflict in which the magic arts is mostly used to further such conflicts and specifically developed to do just that. Despite several groundbreaking discoveries in the the field of magic, it couldn't make up for actual soldiers to channel said discoveries. Actual manpower remained in high demand and was secured early on for proper training from an early stage in the aspiring soldier's emotional development. Thus, little Roland Gates was conscripted at the mere age of 6 like so many before him.

His family nor his life prior to conscription wasn't anything out of the ordinary. His parents knew it was just a matter of time before the military would be coming for him and that they'd be generously compensated when they did so. Knowing that didn't make it any easier to give him up when it came down to it. Still, law is law and Roland ended up within the grasp of his country. He was confirmed to possess innate magical potential and was sent away to receive proper training with his fellow recruits of similiar ability. So it was that Roland received his training in the mystic arts, and among all the recruits of his generation, his gift proved itself outright superior to theirs. Not that it warranted any special treatment until he learned how to control or better yet harness this incredible potential of his .

Given time and practice, he eventually learned how to tap into this incredible power of his and was soon considered for Summoner training. Summoning being among the few arts that the inhabitants of Eos hadn't managed to exploit for war just yet given how rarely someone with the aptitude for such feats would come along. That paired with how it was up to the fickle Espers themselves whether to cooperate with the aspiring summoners only made them that much harder to foster. Still, they decided that the potential earnings from such an endeavor far outweighed whatever injury or worse might befall the boy.

By the time he was 16 he'd already amassed a considerable arsenal of powerful espers. Having scoured every corner of the realm to secure the aid of these powerful beings, sometimes having been forced far into enemy territory to do so. While few of them approved of the heinous acts commited by any faction of Eos, they all chose to believe in the young man them, all for their own reasons. Roland's arsenal now consisting of several powerful spirit of natures, ghosts of the past and the arguably most fuzzy of companions.

As Roland's collection grew larger, so did the efforts to research and potentially harnessing the energy of these espers in a way that would benefit future war efforts. As they would learn, it was impossible to recreate the particular aptitude nor the bond fostered between Summoner and Esper, thus they couldn't create any additional summoners through artificial means. So they instead attempted to create their own espers, something they managed in the form of succesfully restoring the legendary esper: Bahamut from it's fossolized remains. Following such a tremendous success, they decided it was time to go yet a step further.

This time, they would attempt to create an esper from nothing. A creature without previous bonds to the realm, nothing to hold it back. It took them 2 years of further study to construct a vessel worthy of this Ultimate esper of theirs. This "Ultima Weapon" could naturally only be utilized by Roland as the only genuine summoner in the realm and was thrust into his care yet only allowed to call upon it when granted clearance to do so. It didn't take him too long to get such clearance as he was to provide support to a siege effort on an enemy fortress. He'd been ordered to summon Ultima Weapon at earliest convenience from the rear as the siege effort began, that's about when it all went to hell.

Roland looked upon the battlefield in horror as hundreds of thousands of footsoldiers, comrades and classmates of his was plowed through like wheat. They'd walked into a slaughter and worse yet, the Ultima Weapon wouldn't respond to his commands, just staring blankly at the slaughter in front of it. Then even as their forces had been completely anihiliated, his superiors would still refuse to sound a retreat.  As it would turn out, his superiors had knowingly sacrificed their subordinates to ensure that the Ultima Weapon would absorb their lifeforce to make up a core or one might call it a soul of its own, it being much easier to harvest lifeforce from already living beings rather than attempting to outright create life from nothing. With so many souls successfully harvested in the face of such carnage, the construct came to life with a deafening screech and as if just now hearing Roland's pleas, it fired a massive beam of light which transformed the now former battlefield into a barren valley, the casualties serving to fuel the weapon even further.

Having the plan explained to him after the fact, Roland finally snapped and had the Ultima Weapon kill his superiors in a fit of rage. He'd finally had enough, he had to get away, he had to go somewhere where they couldn't make him hurt people anymore. While the Ultima Weapon had made short work of his former allies, Roland was on the verge of exhaustion after spending so much power. Exhausted and cold in this barren tundra for a region, he'd attempted to take shelter in an old mine shaft. He went deep inside the mine to at the very least escape the cold, even going as far summoning two of his companions, one being Shiva for comfort and the other being Ifrit for light and warmth.

At some point after the trio entered the mines, something very strange occured as the narrow path eventually opened up into an enormous tunnel large enough to be mistaken for a valley, a very hot one at that. Little did they know they had somehow left the very realm they once knew. While it was to the taste of Ifrit, the young man and his cold friend wasn't accustomed to such heat, Roland having spent what little energy he could spare on calling forth Ifrit and Mog, only serving to make it that much harder on him. His tired frame eventually got to him as he lost conciousness and collapsed in the middle of the tunnel. Ifrit and Mog had to do what they could with the little time they had left in the material realm and sped through the seemingly never ending tunnels with Roland safely secured in Ifrit's arms. Finally, they reached the Ryuujin capital, Vucran. Ifrit's menacing appearance causing a panic amongst the citizens after he'd busted through the city's barrier single-handedly. It would take the interruption of Shiva to convince the city they meant no harm, begging the citizens of Ryuujin to save Roland. A city official eventually stepping forward to assure Roland's safety to the two. With one of the two sated with the promise alone, the other insisting on mixing a threat into it, they retreated into Roland's deck of cards as they left the young man in the city's care.

It took quite a few days for Roland to wake up, his wounds having fully healed by the time he did so. The city's elite had been happy to cover for any expenses during his stay given the power he obviously heard over the two creatures that had infiltrated the city with such ease. It soon became appearent to them that he'd been brought to Abraxas like so many before him, which they informed him of immedieatly upon his awakening. He was quick to accept such seeing as he was about as far away from his former world as he'd possibly get, which was exactly what he'd wanted to begin with. After proper negotiations between him and several officials of Ryuujin, he was allowed full citizenship and the right to further his own magical abilities in exchange for him using said abilities for the benefit of Ryuujin, the country being in need of capable defenders. Roland supposed the people of Ryuujin had hardly given him any reason to distrust them just yet and figured he'd have to earn a living somehow anyway, even offering to share what knowledge of magic he'd carried from his own world. And with that, Roland Gates was officially sworn into the service of Ryuujin.

He's still getting used to things in this new realm and was further distraught as it would turn out that Shiva and Ifrit were the only ones to respond to his summons, the rest being seemingly unreachable, including the Ultima Weapon. His current goal being to somehow regain the company of his supernatural allies whilst also attempting to lead his new life by his own terms rather than someone else's.