Easton

"Why Jack keep dogs? For eat later?"

—E-147 to Jack West Jr

Easton, formerly designated E-147, is a minotaur or Neanderthal who becomes a trusted friend and ally to Jack West Jr.

History[]

Early History[]

Born as a pure-bred Neanderthal (referred to derogatorily as "minotaurs") in the Underworld, E-147 was not given a proper name, instead the simple designation that identified him as coming from the minotaur city's eastern region. Growing up, he heard the minotaurs' legend of their ancient hero Asterion and his confrontation with the evil prince Theseus.

Likely after reaching a sufficient age and stature, E-147 was forced to become a part of the slave labour force of minotaurs for the Kingdom of Underworld of the Four Legendary Kingdoms, serving Anthony "Hades" DeSaxe.

In 2016, as preparations for the fourth Great Games of the Hydra began, Vacheron began training a number of the minotaurs to act as opponents for the participating champions during the various Challenges. E-147 was selected to participate in the Third Challenge, and so he and his fellows began practising for their assigned role.

The Four Legendary Kingdoms[]

During the Third Challenge, E-147 was one of the many minotaurs under instructions to slow down or kill any Champions to make the Challenge more difficult. E-147 and a few other minotaurs attempted to follow the Champions up the main pinnacle when a spiked iron boulder ran into them, killing some of E-147's companions and keeping him pinned. When Jack West Jr returned to help Sky Monster to the finish line, he heard E-147's pained whimper and saw the minotaur struggling to free itself and pleading for his companions to help him. However, with the liquid stone making its way down the slope, they abandoned E-147. Feeling empathy for the trapped humanoid, Jack went back to free him, emphasizing that he wanted to help him, to the minotaur's surprise. E-147 was carried to the exit by Jack, and because he was allowed to keep anything he carried over the finish line, the minotaur was allowed to be kept as one of his hostages.

That night, as Jack and his support team ate, they spoke to the minotaur, who identified himself. E-147 briefly interrupted Jack's questions to ask if he kept the dogs Ash and Roxy to eat later, though he was confused by Jack's notion that they were for companionship. Though clearly not as intelligent as a human being, not quite understanding his species sense of self when asked by Jack what they were, E-147 was able to give Jack some details regarding the number of minotaurs there were in the Underworld.

After the Fourth Challenge, Jack was informed that, prior to a lunch hosted by Hades, he had been invited to meet the minotaur King, and E-147 and Alby Calvin went with him. As they approached, E-147 told Jack it was a great honour to be meeting the minotaur King. Upon meeting with Minotus, the minotaur King questioned why Jack had saved E-147, and Jack explained his reasons. After Minotus thanked Jack for his kindness towards one of his minotaurs, E-147 and Alby were sent back to the hostage carriage.

Being told to select two of his people to aid in in the Fifth Challenge, Jack chose E-147 and Sky Monster to join him in his Light Strike Vehicle. Upon seeing the minotaurs in the Typhoon trucks, Jack asked E-147 if his presence in his car might mean they would show him preferential treatment, though E-147 said they were from a different region than him and would not care. E-147 helped Jack as they endured the hardships of the race, and later pointed out the minotaur city to him.

Having learned that there was an exit from the Underworld through Dis, and knowing the Champions' hostages would be executed after the Challenge, Jack enacted a plan to rescue his and Schofield's people, and E-147 went along with the group as they fled from the Underworld and made their way north.

After the group was reunited with Pooh Bear, Stretch and Mae, Alby led E-147 and the others back to the Underworld in the hopes that they might be able to rescue Lily and Jack. After Alby told Minotus about Dion and Zaitan's plans to kill Hades after the Games, thus denying them their freedom and dooming them to further tortures, E-147 joined the minotaur army in assaulting the mountain.

E-147 and Minotus helped Alby, Mother and Astro find their comrades, and as the humans prepared to depart the Underworld, Minotus offered E-147 the opportunity to go with them, telling his subject that he had found a true friend, something no other minotaur could claim to have. When Jack affirmed E-147 could join them, the minotaur agreed, and proceeded to travel with Jack and the others away from the Underworld towards Jack's farm. When she saw E-147 disembark from the Sky Warrior, Zoe didn't know what to make of him.

The Three Secret Cities[]

During the next few days after arriving at the Simpson Desert farm, E-147 and his heritage was explained to Zoe and Mae. When Jack and Hades learned that they needed to retrieve important artefacts from the latter's possession, they and the team prepared to head to New York. As his foot remained injured from the iron boulder, E-147 could not join them, but because he needed someone to look after Ash and Roxy, Jack asked the minotaur to look after the dogs while they were gone, although before they departed, Jack reminded the minotaur not to eat the dogs.

The Two Lost Mountains[]

During the team's mission to undertake the Trial of the Cities, E-147 spent his recovery time looking after the dogs and the wounded Horus at the farm, and while tending to the falcon's wounds and tidying up the farmhouse, he found the open space and solitude a welcome change after having living his whole life in the crowded and confined Underworld. E-147 began enjoying spending time with the pet dogs as well, and he was surprised-yet-pleased to discover on the third morning that Roxy and Ash had slept on his bed with him.

After the Trial had been completed and the team began basing themselves out of Hades's Estate in Alsace-Lorraine, a private plane was arranged to bring E-147 and the pets to them. Upon seeing Jack, E-147 reported that he had been a good dog minder and had not eaten them; Jack understood that what the minotaur was really try to say was that he adored the dogs, and so praised his work in caring for them. As he settled in with the team, Mae suggested that they give E-147 a proper name, and the minotaur ultimately chose Alby's suggestion of Easton as his new name. In addition, Easton took on Mae's suggestions for a new look, and allowed his unkempt hair to be shaved and cut away, and so once it was over he looked like an ordinary - if short and stocky - guy, completing Easton's transformation.

Over the next few weeks, Easton observed the team with interest in both their cultures and bonds, the latter particularly piquing his curiosity as he noted their familial relationships despite not actually being related. When Easton asked Jack about it, he learned of how it was their care and trust in one another that made them so close and loyal. Easton also sent his time watching as Alby, Stretch and Pooh Bear worked on the Immortal Weapons in the hope of finding ways to counter Sphinx's new army of bronze and silver automatons, and soon began assisting Stretch in affixing slivers from the Sword of the Rock onto numerous bullets and shotgun shells; despite it being tedious and boring task, Easton did so with gusto so that he could contribute something to his new family.

Easton was among those who remained at the estate with while Jack and the others went to Moscow to rescue Lily, and after they returned, the minotaur was present during the team's discussion of what must needed to happen during the Trial of the Mountains. While the rest of the team was set to head out, Easton and Alby were tasked with remaining at the estate to look after the sleep-struck Lily, Stretch and Aloysius Knight. After helping make the sleepers comfortable, Easton promised Jack that he would keep a good watch over them, to which the Australian commented that Easton was a fine man in gratitude.

While the team was gone, Easton finished affixing slivers from the Sword of the Rock onto the team's ammunition and stored them in a storage basement by the lake house. He reported finishing his job to Alby just as the team began radioing in, and when Sphinx began a worldwide broadcast revealing he knew the estate was the team's base of operations, the pair rushed to get Knight, Lily, Stretch and the animals to the escape train. Unfortunately, as a section of the platform came down, Easton turned back to help a frightened Ash onto the train, but was hit by a bullet fired by one of the Knights of the Golden Eight in the calf, causing him to collapse and be captured by Yago DeSaxe as Alby reluctantly continued the escape.

After bringing his prisoner back to his plane, Yago reported to Sphinx that all that had come of the assault was the minotaur's capture. After Easton noted that Jack was his friend and declared that he had a name and not a designation, to Yago's amusement, Sphinx decided not to bother keeping him as a hostage and ordered Yago to thrown him out of the plane. Yago toyed with Easton by demonstrating the loyalty of the bronzemen thanks to the ring he wore, and ordered two of the automatons to walk out of the plane with the minotaur in their grip.

Fortunately, before they could carry out his order, the plane was infiltrated by Jack, come to rescue Easton. As Jack and Nobody took on the automatons with the specialised bullets, Easton took advantage of the distraction to tackle Yago, and during their scuffle Easton took the ring of command from Yago's finger, and ordered the bronzemen to stand down and seize Yago. Once Jack alleviated Easton's concerns, the minotaur gave him the ring, but after Jack used it to have a pair of bronzemen walk off the plane with Yago, he gave it back to Easton, entrusting him with the command of the bronzemen they now had as thanks for saving Ash.

During the journey to the second iron mountain at Aiguille du Midi, Easton painted the team's new bronzemen pale blue so that they could identify them, and then he and four "palemen" accompanied Jack as he used a seaplane to fly into the Hall of the Falling Temple. Before they could do anything to interupt the confrontation between Dion's forces and the Order of the Omega, Dion performed the Fall and escaped, leaving Easton and Jack to flee from General Garthon Rastor up the cleared moon shaft. Easton then joined Jack, Nobody and Iolanthe in a narrow escape from the collapsing observatory by jumping onto the pontoon of Pooh Bear and Sky Monster's seaplane.

After joining the team as they reconvened outside Dijon, Easton accompanied Jack and Pooh Bear to Jerusalem, with Easton and Pooh Bear obtaining a van and waiting at the Old City's Jaffa Gate. But as Jack returned rattled after seeing Mae killed at the fourth mountain, Easton and the others were caught off-guard as a Chinook under Jaeger Zwei's control appeared and rung a Siren bell, sending the trio into the siren sleep. Fortunately, Easton and the others were not under the bell's effect for long, as Zoe arrived with a recently-awakened Lily, Stretch and Knight to extract them to safety, where Dr Tracy Smith injected a synthetic endolymph fluid into their ears to wake them.

Soon Easton and the team arrived in Egypt so that Jack, Lily and Zoe could undertake the Fall at the final iron mountain beneath the Great Sphinx of Giza, and remained with Knight to guard the team's Super Galaxy. Once Jack and the others returned, Easton helped the rest of the team in their preparations to head to the Supreme Labyrinth and for the fight against the forces Sphinx had left to guard the gates.

Arriving at the location of the Supreme Labyrinth's gates in the Sinai Desert, Easton took part in enacting Jack's "Russian Doll" plan in order to barrel through Sphinx's defences, with the minotaur in one of the planes as they crashed into the automatons before taking a few palemen and helping Knight hijack a troop truck, and helping Jack, Lily and Zoe reach the gate. Catching up to the Wests as they got to the gate, Easton and four of his palemen ended up making it through the entrance as well, and so once they were ready, Easton joined the rest of the group as they proceeded into the Labyrinth.

The One Impossible Labyrinth[]

A short distance into their entranceway, after Jack was attacked by a Vandal, Easton explained the nature of the cannibalistic men, but as Jack started to take stock of their situation, Easton interrupted to warn that Vandals usually worked in pairs, though this came too late as the second Vandal caused them to trigger a sliding stone trap. After ordering one of his palemen to kill the Vandal, Easton and the Wests rushed into the First Cavern. Jack asked Easton to accompany Lily through the main stalactite while he and Zoe distracted the silverman on their bridge; agreeing to do so, Easton ordered three of the palemen to hold their silver counterpart down and the last paleman protect Jack and Zoe. Skirting around the automaton using the gutters, Easton and Lily made it into the stalactite, where they were attacked by another pair of Vandals before proceeding down the well shaft.

Once they emerged onto the spiral path, Easton and Lily saw Rastor start firing RPGs at the stalactite to bring it down, and found the bridge ahead of them broken. At Lily's request, Easton handed her some of his grenades so that she could collapse one of the nearby obelisks to allow them to cross the gap. After seeing Jack go into shock after Zoe fell into the abyss with the falling stalactite, Easton helped Lily drag him to the exit from the First Cavern before it closed on them.

Easton and "Smiley" scouted the tunnel ahead while Lily comforted Jack, and soon came back to report there was only one path open to them. After watching as Lily choose their path in the Six Choices and her defeat of Dion, Easton and Jack rejoined her, with the minotaur ordering Smiley to protect Lily as well, and choosing not to intervene when Lily gave Jack a lecture on not giving up as they pressed on.

As they walked, Easton noted that his people often spoke of Asterion's time in the Labyrinth, and Jack and Lily asked him to tell them the story of his people's hero. When the group came across a stationary goldman, Easton, Lily and Smiley waited for Jack to give them the all-clear before proceeding, taking care not to speak or look into the automaton's face. Despite coming under attack from more Vandals, Easton and the others were able to get to safety before the goldman attacked, escaping into the next "under-tunnel".

After several hours, Easton and the rest arrived at the entrance to the City-Maze, although Easton was hit in the shoulder by one of Rastor's snipers. Narrowly surviving the detonation of a crimson orb thanks to Smiley's intervention, Easton, Jack and Lily witnessed the contest taking place between Sphinx's forces, the Order of the Omega, and Rastor's men as they raced to get to the throne in the center of the City-Maze. As an aircraft carrier was pulled into the City-Maze due to the damage to the seawall caused by Rastor's RPGs, Easton, Lily and Smiley were cut off from Jack and trapped on their ledge. With Lily unconscious and his own injury, Easton could do nothing but keep an eye on Lily and watch as Jack proceeded to destroy the throne and race into the second half of the Labyrinth alone.

Soon afterwards, a chopper carrying Alby, Sky Monster, Knight and Rufus landed nearby, and Easton swapped stories with them until the still-alive Zoe arrived. As Zoe, Lily and Alby elected to go after Jack, Easton tried to protest when Zoe told Knight to take Easton and Smiley with him, only to be told kindly that he had done his part and needed to get his bullet wound looked at. Conceeding, Easton joined Knight's group as they used their chopper to do some additional damage to Sphinx's forces and rain fire upon the temporary airfield and scatter the now-leaderless forces.

Some time later, shortly after the Omega Event had been successfully averted, Easton and the others were contacted by Jack, who had beaten Sphinx to the Labyrinth's other throne, and so Easton set off with the others to pick up Jack, the rest of their friends, and the captured Sphinx.

As the world got back to normal in the aftermath of the events of the trials and Sphinx's actions, Easton returned to the minotaur kingdom in the Underworld to spread the tale of Jack's heroics. Easton was praised by his people for aiding Jack in his endeavor, and was considered to be a hero on-par with Asterion. For his accomplishments, Easton was offered the role of the minotaur king, though he politely declined the offer, instead asking Jack for permission to live out the rest of his days living on a cottage on Jack's farm. Easton had Smiley remain with him at his new cottage, using the automaton to aid him his his duties around the farm, and the minotaur enjoyed the rest of his life living alongside his friends and the dogs.

Personality[]

During his time serving the Kingdom of Underworld, E-147 had little opportunity to do anything but work and rest, an environment in which he, like the majority of his people, did not have a chance to properly learn and express himself as an individual. Once he was rescued by Jack, however, E-47 had the opportunity to start learning about the wider world, though he had some initial difficulty in understanding human norms such as keeping dogs as companions. As he watched Jack work to rescue his friends, E-147 started to realise the value of loyalty and trust, which led to him deciding to accompany him and his friends out of the Underworld when given the chance.

During his time spent at Jack's farm on his own, E-147 found the isolation a welcome change from his former home's constant clamour, and came to appreciate the company that the dogs Roxy and Ash provided. While he had at first a simple speech pattern, he became more fluent in the few weeks he spent with the team following the Trial of the Cities. As he took on his new identity as Easton, the minotaur did everything he could to aid the team's preparations, while also showing an interest in learning and trying to understand the concepts that most humans consider to be simple or just take for granted.

During the Trial of the Mountains, Easton proved himself to be an honest, loyal and devoted member of Jack's team, willing to take on any task they needed done, no matter how tedious. When captured by Yago, Easton was defiant to his captor, having come to accept that he was not a simple brute like the Four Kingdoms assumed all minotaurs to be, and was certain that Jack would rescue him because he had become the Australian's friend, though he briefly wavered in this conviction when Yago pressed him. However, Easton was proven right, and for his loyalty, Jack decided to grant him control over the bronzemen they'd acquired, proving that he held Easton in high regard and trusted him explicitly, which Easton continued to prove when he joined the Wests family in the Supreme Labyrinth.

Skills[]

Trained Combatant: In preparation for the third Challenge of the Great Games of the Hydra, E-147 was given some combat training, enough for him to prove a potential challenge for the Champions and their partners.
Trained Marksman: E-147 may have had some training in using rifles, as he competently carried one during the minotaur revolt.

Equipment[]

Weapons[]

Rifle: During the minotaur revolt, E-147 carried a rifle.
Grenades: Easton carried some grenades on his person while accompanying the Wests into the Supreme Labyrinth, and loaned a couple to Lily so that she could bring down an obelisk to created a bridge for them to use.
Pistol: A small firearm with a mounted flashlight that Easton carried on him while in the Supreme Labyrinth.

Other Equipment[]

Bull Helmet: A bull-shaped mask typically worn by the minotaurs, but which E-147 took off after being pinned by one of the carved boulders. It has a mesh over the visor to allow E-147 to see through, and features a gas-mask filter made in the shape of an animal's snout.
Ring of Command: One of the four lesser rings which controls a small number of the bronze and silver guardians, which Easton took from Yago DeSaxe, and was allowed possession of by Jack in order to control the few bronzemen they had gained control of.
- "Palemen": A small group of bronzemen which can be controlled by the particular ring of command worn by Easton. At Jack's direction, Easton painted them in a pale blue paint, so that they would be able to differentiate which automatons were theirs.
  - Smiley: The last-surviving paleman that ventured into the Supreme Labyrinth with Jack, Lily, Zoe and Easton, which got its nickname from the curved scratch it received while moving under the closing gate.

Trivia[]

Among the other suggested names for Easton that the team offered were Eric, Eldrick and Edward.