Name: Matthew Galloway
Gender: Male
Age: 35
Nationality: Imperial
Zoid: Red Horn
AIM: BlackOrpheusSSDD
Personality:
Because Matthew is a lawyer, he is very attentive to the technicalities of things, and tends to ignore the bigger picture. His mind is very legally geared, meaning he is very disapproving of any sort of illegal activity. Of course, adjusting the truth is another matter entirely, and is something Matthew excels at. It’s not lying; it’s just making the facts fit his view of things.
Being a lawyer, Matthew has gone all the way through law school, and is quite intelligent. It is for this reason that he tends to be a little arrogant and cynical of people he perceives to be less intelligent or cultured than himself. Of course, his intelligence is only academic, as, being a big-city boy, he has little experience with dealings of the world outside the courtroom.
Being a lawyer means working with rather undesirable characters, especially since he is a government district attorney. Matthew has seen people guilty of unspeakable crimes, and what is worse; he has had to occasionally had to get these sorts of people out of trouble. This has lead Matthew to a great deal of internal conflict and incredible stress. He is so unsure of some of the things he has done in his line of work that he has developed various mental afflictions, not the least of which are Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and schizophrenia.
The turning point of Matthew’s life, when his mind truly began to falter, was when he was assigned to defend a serial murderer in court. Matthew managed to get him off on a technicality, and that same man went on to kill another seven people before taking his own life a month later. This incident has haunted Matthew for many years, and makes him feel dirty and unclean. Because of this feeling of dirtiness, Matthew has irrational and obsessive urges to keep everything around him neat and tidy and proper. While not a problem in his own apartment and office, this small facet of his psyche has lead to immense stress and worry on his part while around other people.
Matthew has other phobias as well, including agoraphobia, so he is afraid to be in large, wide-open places. This phobia can be traced back to his school days, but it continues to haunt him even now. For this reason, and because of his OCD, when Matthew isn’t working, he prefers to spend his time in the cockpit of his Red Horn, safe and secure and away from others.
The facet of Matthew’s psyche that most disturbs him is one that has been with him every since his high-school days. Because Matthew was, to put it bluntly, what most people would consider a nerd in high school, he received more than his fair share of bullying. At least once a week, and more often on a daily basis, Matthew would be abused and tormented in the way that only young and twisted minds can do it. There was one particularly severe incident that hospitalized Matthew, leaving him in a coma for a week. Matthew can’t remember anything of the incident, but part of his mind still can. In order to deal with the pain, torment and hatred he was feeling, Matthew developed two alter egos who lurk in the back of his mind. Though they are just voices that tend to vocalize feelings Matthew doesn’t want to acknowledge, Matthew has deluded himself into believing they are fully-blown people who can take control of his body if he allows it. This provide him with a wonderful excuse, as whenever he does something he finds distasteful, he simply tends to blame it on the influence of the voices that talk to him. Really, he uses them as little more than a scapegoat for his deeper emotions.
If you believe what Matthew says, one is a hateful, spiteful person, willing to risk himself for just about anything if it means getting revenge on the world that tortured him so unfairly. The other is more of a playboy, interested in women, alcohol and little else. Matthew himself totally believes there are ‘people’ inside his head, even if it isn’t true. Not being a psychologist, Matthew has made many ‘leaps of faith’ that have lead to him believing what he wants to believe, that the things he does aren’t his fault. Even so, the very fact that he has so many mental issues means that Matthew tends to try to avoid emotional situations whenever he can, looking to the logical side of things instead.
Background
Matthew was born in NC 57, just before the Geno Trio was unleashed on the Helic Republic. Matthew was born in the Guylos Empire kingdom of Zenab, in a fairly large city, and the war did not really affect him, as it was a war being fought on distant shores and lands. Matthew’s mother was a minor politician, and his father an academic professor of the arts at a local college of his hometown, Falknertown. Because of the occupations of his parents, Matthew always was a well-off child. Not rich by any means, but certainly part of the bottom end of the upper class. Being that his father was a professor of law, Matthew was pushed to achieve at a young age. He was placed in the care of the finest nanny that his parents could afford, and when he was five a tutor was hired to home school him.
Therefore, Matthew grew up with everything he needed, and a few things he didn’t need but merely wanted. His nanny, Isabelle, and his tutor became his replacement parents as his real parents were so often away or tied up in their work. Matthew developed with the idea firmly lodged in his head that his parents were merely there to make sure he was cared for, not to really love him in anyway. Not knowing any better, this never bothered Matthew in the slightest. This ideal has carried over to the present, where Matthew is highly indifferent about love. This small part of his life would cause him some rather big problems later on in his life.
So Matthew continued to grow, and at the age of nine, his nanny was formally removed from her duties of care. This came as somewhat of a surprise to Matthew, having lost the one person he could usually depend on to talk to. Worried about the effect that the loss of a person who’d cared for him for most of his life might have on Matthew, his mother began taking him to sessions with a child psychologist. The psychologist was a nice enough person, but Matthew was a sharp child, and he knew what seeing a psychologist meant, in that innocent way that children know why people do what they do. Matthew knew that seeing a psychologist meant he was crazy. Of course, this wasn’t true, but Matthew was nine years old at the time, and had only the vaguest ideas of the world outside his small experience.
The sessions with the psychologist continued, and Matthew began to learn that he wasn’t crazy. He was simply of a different breed to most people on Zi, and this was nothing to be ashamed of. At least, that’s what his parents drilled into him. So, Matthew went on with his life quite happily. As his twelfth birthday approached, Matthew’s mother realized he was soon going to hit puberty, and wanted to make sure that he learnt to socialize, but in the proper way, of course. So he was enrolled in the finest co-educational boarding school on Europa, and when the spring came, boarded a Whale King and took off to the Freiheight Grammar College of Europa.
When Matthew arrived at what was to essentially be his home for the next six years, he found himself arriving back home, in a sense. Freiheight Grammar was a sanitized, privatized and wholesome place, just waiting to nurture the minds of the young prodigies who were attending it at a high price to their parents. In a sense, this familiarity was comforting, but in another way, it spooked Matthew out. Having had little experience with the feeling of being spooked, Matthew buried himself in his work, becoming a model student.
At a school like Freiheight Grammar, there are two main sorts of students. The good ones, and those pampered, spoiled brats who were used to getting their own way. Unfortunately for Matthew, he was assigned a dorm with three of these types of fellows, smarmy and slimy kids who wanted everything. Because Matthew was such a good student and worked so hard, and thus gained much respect with the teaching community, he quickly fell into the bad books with his dormmates. They had always been used to so much attention being on them that when Matthew started receiving it, they made sure that Matthew also felt the sting of negative attention.
At first it was little more than name calling and teasing, which Matthew coped with well enough. He had a sensible, logical demeanor that could see why these other students were teasing him, and he shrugged it off. So Matthew survived the first year of Freiheight Grammar reasonably comfortably, achieving A’s in most of his subjects, with the occasional B in the mix. It was the second year where things started to go bad.
In his second year of conventional schooling, Matthew became a much bigger target for bullies, being chosen as the student representative for his age group. For this insult, many of the nastier boys and girls at the Grammar College decided to play tricks on Matthew and use him as a punching bag whenever they got the chance. Matthew realized why he was being bullied and withdrew from being the representative a week into the first term, but the damage had been done. He was now one of the ‘in’ people to pick on. His teachers ignored it, and when he wrote or called his parents at home, they simply told him to ignore the torture, telling him it would ‘build his character’.
By the time the second term of the year had begun, Matthew learned that the best way to avoid any pain was not to be seen. He spent much of his time in the least used library, the Library of Law, and it was at this library where his interest in law began. While he spent the hours hiding in there, Matthew would read about law, and the vast, complex layers that the law had, and it held a certain appeal to him. Matthew had always liked proving his intelligence, and law was certainly something very few people could really understand. It was during this time that Matthew decided he would like to be a lawyer.
Matthew’s interest in law was not the only interest the Library of Law had sparked within him. There were a few others who frequented the library, one being a certain girl whom Matthew quickly developed an infatuation for. So, Matthew decided to approach her, and his lack of knowledge about love quickly made itself apparent. Matthew made a fool out of himself in front of that girl, and earned himself an enemy in the form of her boyfriend of the time. Of course, as fate would have it, her boyfriend was one of the jealous jocks of the school, so Matthew soon started receiving beatings again. Matthew returned to his secretive ways, aiming not to be seen at all. This wasn’t much of a problem most of the time, until he entered his third year. In his third year, Matthew had a class in a building that was at the opposite end of the school oval to most of the other buildings. This meant walking across a large, relatively clear area, where he could be spotted by anyone. More often than not, this lead to Matthew receiving beatings for continuing to attend Freiheight Grammar.
This problem continued for the next three years of his life at Freiheight Grammar, and lead to Matthew developing a burgeoning case of agoraphobia. In his last year of schooling, his agoraphobia was cemented for life when a group of drunken students decided to give him a real beating. Five of them against Matthew, who was in no particular way very strong, led to what can only be described as a pummeling. One of the drunkards actually smacked Matthew around the face with a bat, concussing him and putting him in a coma. At this point, it seemed the idiots had realized just what they had done, as they ran away, except one, who called an ambulance and then waited, appalled at his actions.
Matthew was taken to the hospital, and remained in a coma for just over a week. He received stitches all the way along his scalp, which had been split open, and was lucky he hadn’t received brain damage. Unknown to him at the time, something had happened to his brain, but not brain damage. Matthew could never remember anything of that night, and for good reason. Those memories had slunk to the back of his mind and manifested as a voice in his brain, that would talk to him and make him aware of the feelings he was truly experiencing. Matthew, afraid of what the voice could lead him to do, convinced himself that it was actually a separate person, whom he named Warren. With this belief in mind, Matthew could freely use Warren as a scapegoat if he decided to lash out, and has kept this little ace up his sleeve for a long time.
Eventually, Matthew recovered from his injury, and left hospital, going straight to court, and suing the students who had beaten him so severely. Having studied law for five years now, Matthew decided to be his own lawyer, and won the case with ease. From there, Matthew traveled to law school in New Helic City, to learn the finer points of law. He attended the school for two years, graduating just as the Guylos Empire allowed the ZBC to arrange sanctioned battles in the Elemia Desert. At the age of 21, Matthew was now a fully certified lawyer.
To keep things simple, the next six years of Matthew’s life can be summed up quite easily. He worked hard as a lawyer, lost some cases, won a lot more, and was set up very nicely to live the good life. At twenty-five years of age, Matthew met a special lady; they fell deeply in love, and got married a year later. Matthew’s job as a lawyer was going along great too, allowing him to support them both with ease. Sure, he got the occasional client he personally disagreed with, but he did his job anyway. When he turned twenty-eight, Matthew bought a nice condo for himself and his wife, who had recently fallen pregnant. Only a month after that, Matthew was given the case for defending Brian Murlock, one of the worst criminals Zi had seen in years.
Brian Murlock had killed twelve people over the course of eight months, each time strangling them to death with a skipping rope. He’d eventually been captured, and Matthew had been appointed the case. The media was in a frenzy about the case, portraying Matthew as a corrupt and manifestly evil lawyer. Matthew initially refused to take the case, but was caught by a loophole in his company contract. Forced to try and prove Murlock innocent, Matthew became wrapped up in his work, stopping only once for months. That brief period of rest came about when his wife went into labour, and gave birth to a girl they had decided to call Jennifer. Jennifer was stillborn.
Caught up in grief, Matthew tried to escape it by burying himself back in his work, and it was during this time of intense work that Matthew found a technicality and managed to get Murlock declared innocent. Murlock went free, and Matthew hoped that would be the last of it. But no, Murlock, free now, killed seven more people in the space of three and a half months, before hanging himself with a skipping rope. Matthew was riddled with guilt about what Murlock had done, and the media took to the story like pack dogs, tearing apart any credibility Matthew had previously had. It was during this time that Matthew’s wife filed for a divorce, citing ‘inattention to her needs’ as the reason. The court ruled in favour of her, and she took the condominium, along with sixty percent of what Matthew had earned.
Aged twenty-nine, Matthew began to see a psychologist, old mental issues suddenly springing back up to haunt him, and new ones joining the party. Matthew began to feel dirty and soiled, and took to cleaning up and neatening things repeatedly, in a textbook display of obsessive-compulsive disorder. His psychologist prescribed him medication, and off Matthew went, to try to re-establish his life. He transferred to another law firm, and continued to work, though now more often on low-profile cases.
Five years on, Matthew has recently been promoted, and is now working on high-profile cases once more. This has caused him to worry and fret, sure that the public hates him. This, in combination with his many other ‘quirks’, has led to a large buildup in stress for him, which is reducing the effectiveness of his medications. In order to solve this, Matthew’s psychiatrist has recommended the violent but non-dangerous sport of sanctioned Zoid battling to relieve stress. Matthew decided to take the idea up, taking a liking to the strategical basis of the sport. Taking some funds from his last few years of work, Matthew has just purchased a Zoid that will be able to stand up for itself, just like he wishes he’d been able to when he was younger. Joining a team that has just recently risen to the Imperial League, Matthew now participates in Zoid battles whenever he is feeling particularly stressed or out of it.
Description:
Matthew is Imperial by descent, and hails from the kingdom of Zenab, in the temperate band of Zi. He has a slightly ethnic look, with dark gold skin, and slightly slanted brown eyes. These features, along with the neatly trimmed curly black hair that hangs down to just above his eyes, are the indicators of the Trillistani heritage a large number of the Zenab population hold. Also gracing the narrow, well-defined face of Matthew is a neat, carefully trimmed goatee, just below his chin, and a neat moustache that runs around his lips to join with the goatee.
Matthew himself stands at around five feet and nine inches tall, and usually wears respectable business suits in varying shades of gray. These suits are usually matched with highly polished black loafers and a leather-bound briefcase he carries almost everywhere with him. He is lean, with very little muscle on his body, but maintains a healthy aura by a regular and well-maintained diet.
If Matthew were to let you run your fingers through his hair, you would be able to feel a twisted, knotted scar on the left side of his scalp. Smaller, almost-impossible-to-see faint scars accompany this scar on his chest and arms, remnants of the more severe beatings Matthew once received. Also adorning his chest is a light peppering of curly black hair, which matches the hair on his head.
When Matthew is piloting his Zoid, he dispenses with the suits and instead wears sensible long-sleeved button-up shirts, usually made of cotton or some similar weave, which are usually white or dark blue. With these shirts, he wears long pants that breathe for comfort, normally black or tan, and a leather belt with a shining silver buckle. On his feet, he wears a well-worn, comfortable pair of loafers, and he always wears a bright gold wristwatch so he will never be late for a meeting.