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Zahir al Anzar al Abbas, also known as Saladin or Pooh Bear, is a Sergeant in the United Arab Emirates' special forces. He is also a member of the Coalition of Minnows and Jack West Jr's team.

History[]

Early History[]

Born as the second son to the powerful Sheik Anzar al Abbas, Zahir grew up in a luxurious lifestyle. Even so, he often felt overshadowed by his older brother Rashid, whom his father seemed to favour more. Unlike his brother, however, Zahir maintained a proper respect for his religion and was more tolerant of most other cultures.

Since their family had long prided itself on strength, Rashid often bullied and beat Zahir when they were young, particularly whenever his younger brother was trying to study. As an escape, Zahir began reading Isaac Asamov's Foundation, which he enjoyed immensely and would read over and over, along with the rest of Asimov's novels.

Some time after turning 18, Zahir joined the UAE's armed forces, becoming an expert in heavy munitions and explosives, and was soon given the call-sign Saladin, and later became the commander of a First Commando Regiment. During this time he came to hide a piece of C4 in his beard ring, feeling that it was a good precaution for if he was caught in a bad situation.

Saladin had either little luck in securing a love life, never meeting the right girl to marry, which his mother was anguished by.

Before Seven Ancient Wonders[]

In 1996, Saladin accompanied his father as they went to represent the United Arab Emirates in a meeting of small nations to discuss uniting to restore the Golden Capstone in order to avert the destruction threatened by the Tartarus sunspot. Once Skeik Abbas agreed to the multi-national mission, he volunteered Saladin to help guard Lily until she was old enough to begin translating the clues leading to the hiding places within the seven Ancient Wonders.

Once the meeting was over, the chosen team members took different routes to the team's base in Kenya, and Saladin accompanied Epper at one stage, who told Saladin about the disastrous consequences of the Tararus sunspot causing global flooding and the team's options in using the Capstone to prevent the disaster and keep their enemies from achieving an apparent unrivaled power. Saladin noted that the last option, simply keeping one Piece of the Capstone so that no one could perform the ritual of power, involved allowing the global flooding to occur, to which Epper posed to him if it was the lesser of two evils.

Over the next few years at Victoria Station, Saladin assisted in raising Lily, however, at one point when she was young, Saladin became exasperated and embarrassed when Lily began asking questions about his faith and how it seemed he may not have had respect for the burqa-less Zoe Kissane. Later, Lily would rechristen Saladin's call-sign as Pooh Bear, a nickname he would hold with pride.

Seven years after the assignment started, the team was approached by the Mossad agent Benjamin Cohen, whom the Mossad wanted added to the Coalition's team or else they would expose the Coalition to their rivals. Jack agreed, and while the rest of the team would come to accept Cohen, Pooh Bear had reservations towards him, in part due to Cohen's Jewish faith.

When Lily turned ten, she managed to decipher the first part of the Callimachus text, and soon afterwards Jack West Jr led Pooh Bear and the rest of the team to the Sudan to locate the Colossus of Rhodes Piece.

Seven Ancient Wonders[]

As the team made their way into the ancient mine, Pooh Bear struggled to keep up through the trap-laden mine. After the team was forced to race to the Third Gate ahead of a sliding stone, Pooh Bear failed to make it in time and was cut off from the others. While they assumed he had been killed, Pooh Bear managed to outrun the stone long enough for him to take cover in a spiked pit and let it pass overhead. As the team was fleeing back down the slipway, Pooh Bear covered them by firing at the European soldiers pursuing them. Unfortunately, once they made it back outside, the team was surrounded by Cal Kallis's CIEF team and forced to hand over the Capstone Piece, but luckily the team still managed to escape on the Halicarnassus.

The team began preparing their next move to recover the Alexandria Lighthouse Piece, and soon Jack located Hamilcar's Refuge in a concealed inlet. They were forced to race against Kallis and Judah's teams through the trap systems to the Refuge, and Pooh Bear bickered with Stretch along the way. He helped to provide cover fire for Jack, Zoe and Lily as they entered the Refuge and hold Judah's team off to give them a head start. Unfortunately Zoe and Lily were unable to retrieve the Piece, and so while Jack pursued the CIEF, Pooh Bear helped to fend their enemies off until Lily suggested he use one of his demolition charges to provide them with an escape route back to the surface.

In the wake of their failures, Jack called a team meeting to discuss the difficulties they were having with the clues for the Statue of Zeus and Temple of Artemis Pieces, during which he berated Stretch for his lack of faith in Jack and Epper's ability to solve the issue. Soon, Jack reluctantly decided they needed to liberate Mustapha Zaeed, an expert on the Capstone, from Guantanamo Bay to help them identify the location of the Zeus Piece, a decision Pooh Bear was surprised by given his awareness of Zaeed's deeds.

During the attack on Guantanamo, Pooh Bear helped man the plane's turrets and fired rubber bullets at the defending Marines to distract them while Jack and Zoe retrieved the terrorist. In the subsequent discussion with Zaeed, the terrorist initially mistook Pooh Bear for his older brother, which Pooh Bear corrected. Soon Zaeed revealed that the Zeus Piece was kept unknowingly in the Louvre, and later spoke with his fellow Muslim, sharing his distrust of the Israeli's presence and suggesting that fellow brethren of Allah should stand together. While he did not respond to Zaeed's words, Pooh Bear could not help but mull them over.

Pooh Bear was a part of the team that deployed to Paris to retrieve the Zeus Piece, first helping to procure an escape route through the catacombs and then stealing a double-decker bus to aid their escape. Once the Piece was obtained and the measurements from the Paris obelisk noted, Pooh Bear helped to fend off the pursuing French Army vehicles until they managed to evade their enemies by crashing the bus and swimming into the maze of catacombs.

Later, after they had landed back at Victoria Station, Pooh Bear and Stretch were in the middle of escorting Zaeed off the Halicarnassus when they suddenly came under fire from the Judah's men, and so the pair took cover on the air-stairs. After Big Ears sacrificed himself to get Lily closer to the air-stairs, Pooh Bear and Stretch both reacted with the same intention to protect Lily by simultaneously breaking cover and firing back at the Americans as they dropped their guard, grabbing Lily and getting themselves onto the Halicarnassus so that they could escape.

With the loss of Big Ears and the Capstone Piece distressing everyone, and the additional revelation that the rest of their team had been captured by the Europeans, Pooh Bear couldn't help but accuse Stretch of selling them out. Before tensions could escalate, Jack ordered them to stop and, rather than give up, decided that they had to locate the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and retrieve its Piece. They soon managed to determine the Gardens' location, however Pooh Bear and Jack noticed an Israeli chopper closing in on them. Shortly after they got past the first trap they were confronted by a group of Sayaret Matkal, and Pooh Bear sarcastically congratulated Stretch for selling them out at their lowest ebb.

While being forced to escort the Israeli's through the Garden's traps, Pooh Bear grated at Avenger's threatening of Lily to force their cooperation, and after he and Jack retrieved the Piece for Avenger, the pair were left hanging from the ceiling. Even as the rotund Pooh Bear struggled to maintain his grip, he couldn't help but lament that he had actually begun to trust Stretch. Luckily Jack managed to get them to safety by swinging them onto the giant stalactite using an American chopper, but were too late to intercept Avenger's team and made their escape through the Priests' entrance as the Americans destroyed the Gardens.

Soon after returning to the Halicarnassus, Pooh Bear watched as Jack checked them all for tracking bugs and was surprised when Jack himself failed. After disabling it, Jack, Pooh Bear and Sky Monster made their way to Giza to stop the Americans from performing the ceremony of power on top of the Great Pyramid. Once Sky Monster initiated the plane's hovering system, Pooh Bear was freely able to fire at the CIEF soldiers and choppers from one of the turrets. He was happily surprised when he was joined in the assault by his fellow teammates in a Black Hawk, Stretch among them. After the battle was over, Pooh Bear joined in the reunion of the team, and after hearing how Stretch had betrayed his countrymen to keep Lily safe, the Arabian made up his quarrel with the Israeli, affirming their new friendship.

In the following weeks after the battle, Pooh Bear assisted Jack in retrieving the Pillar from the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus and Mirror from the Lighthouse of Alexandria from Hamilcar's Refuge.

Between Seven Ancient Wonders and The Six Sacred Stones[]

Some time after the mission was completed, Pooh Bear returned to the United Arab Emirates to resume his regular duties, while occasionally being asked to go over some details of the Capstone mission. Pooh Bear began spending much time working as an instructor at a special forces training facility, teaching the soldiers there many of the tactics that he himself had learned from Jack over the ten-year mission.

After reflecting on the deaths of Big Ears, Doris and Noddy during the mission, Jack realised that there would always be the risk of being killed without a chance to say goodbye, and so he suggested that Pooh Bear and everybody in the team write an email to be read by him or someone else important to them should they perish during a mission, which he called Messages from the Other Side. Since he and Stretch had become good friends, Pooh Bear also wrote a Message especially for the Israeli.

During his time off, Pooh Bear would regularly visit Jack and Lily at the Great-Sandy Desert farm, and since Stretch was now persona non grata in Israel, Pooh Bear allowed him to stay with him on occasion. Though the absence of most of her former guardians, including Pooh Bear, was hard on Lily at first, she in turn took to visiting them in their home nation whenever possible, usually staying at the Burj al Arab in Dubai whenever she visited Pooh Bear. 

Pooh Bear was able to reunite with the entire team as they celebrated the 2007 New Year at the Burj al Arab.

The Six Sacred Stones[]

In December 2007, Pooh Bear was informed by his father that Jack's farm had been invaded by hostile Chinese forces and that Jack was on his way to the Burj al Arab, and so Pooh Bear began making his way to meet them, reuniting with Stretch along the way. Upon arriving at the Burj, Pooh Bear greeted Lily warmly, asking about her studies and teasing her friend Alby Calvin about his intentions with her. Shortly before the new meeting of nations began, Scimitar arrived to join them, and only Lily noticed Zahir's emotional hurt when their father greeted him warmly.

Pooh Bear listened as Jack revealed what he had learned from Wizard's notes; a zero-point field referred to as the Dark Star was due to enter the solar system, and unless it was repelled, then its deadly energy would destroy all life on Earth. To this end, they needed to gather six oblong diamonds called Pillars and set them at various locations around the world to rebuild an ancient machine. In order to find the Pillars and Vertices, determine when each Pillar had to be set and cleanse them, they would need to find the Six Sacred Stones.

Because Wizard was been held prisoner by the Chinese at Xintan prison, Pooh Bear joined most of the team in preparing to liberate him and Tank. Hiding in the nearby snow banks until the prison's Hind gunship landed nearby, Pooh Bear helped to take their chopper so that the team could use it to make their way to Witch Mountain. Upon their arrival, Pooh Bear remained on the Hind to see to Tank's injuries while the rest of the team made their way through Laozi's trap system to retrieve the Philosopher's Stone.

Reuniting with Zoe, Lily, Alby and Julius and Lachlan Adamson at Mortimer Island, Pooh Bear joined the procession as they identified the location of the First Vertex at Abu Simbel, learned the Pillar-laying dates from the Killing Stone of the Maya, and cleansed the two Pillars they had with the Philosopher's Stone. With the first components they needed in hand, Pooh Bear joined the rest of the team as they headed out to lay the First Pillar.

After the team arrived at Abu Simbel and located the entrance to the Vertex, Pooh Bear baulked at the Jack's suggestion to crawl by the Nile crocodiles in the entryway since they would be too sluggish to move, and so Jack assured him that he didn't have to join them. Instead Pooh Bear remained up on the zodiac with Lily, Alby, Astro, and Iolanthe Compton-Jones, but once Jack laid the Pillar Iolanthe betrayed them and had her SAS surround them. Handcuffed to the zodiac, Pooh Bear could do nothing as Iolanthe took Lily, Wizard and the Pillar and left the inflatable to sink. Pooh Bear did his best to defend Alby from the crocodiles, and though he wore himself out in the process, Jack and Zoe arrived in time to rescue them.

Wizard then radioed to report that Iolanthe's group had been blindsided by suicide bombers, and was now fleeing with Lily and the Pillar. However, Sky Monster then reported that a convoy of enemy vehicles were approaching, and so the team rushed to catch up with the Halicarnassus. In the course of the ensuing chase, Pooh Bear helped to fight off their assailants, but was soon forced to jump from their bus to take down some of their assailants, allowing Zoe and Alby were able to get onboard. Having used his enemies to shield his fall, Pooh Bear came out relatively unscathed, but was soon captured by the enemy.

Along with the rest of his captured teammates, Pooh Bear was taken to an Ethiopian mine run by Jack's father Wolf, who was leading their opposition, and imprisoned in a cage above a pool of arsenic. When he spotted Scimitar approaching, Pooh Bear beseeched his brother to free him, however Scimitar revealed he and Vulture were aligned with Wolf and scoffed at Pooh Bear's allegiance to the Coalition before leaving him to the guards for sacrifice.

Later, as the guards prepared to sacrifice Pooh Bear by dunking his cage in the arsenic pool, Jack managed to free the Jewish slave miners, who overran their oppressors and allowed Jack the chance to free his friend. As he and Jack discussed the situation, Pooh Bear informed Jack about Wolf preparing to hand Stretch over to the Mossad, Scimitar's betrayal, and suggested that Astro may not have been a plant as Wolf suggested. After the leader of the Jewish Ethiopians then gave them the Stones Wolf had them digging for, the Twin Tablets of Thuthmosis, as thanks for freeing them, the pair began making their way back to Victoria Station to plan their next move.

Surprised to be met by the Adamsons at their old farm, Pooh Bear helped Jack to recover as the twins explained the Japanese Blood Brothehood's plans to sabotage the Machine-restoration mission, leading Jack to determine they needed to find a way to the Second Vertex beneath Table Mountain. Once they arrived at the airport, however, Pooh Bear, knowing that Stretch needed help, informed Jack of his decision to rescue their friend. Understanding, Jack gave Pooh Bear his wristwatch and told him to activate its GPS if he needed help, and with that Pooh Bear headed off on his own.

The Five Greatest Warriors[]

After leaving Jack an the others, Pooh Bear began making his way back to the Emirates, intending to alert his father to Scimitar's treachery. However, a friend in the intelligence services warned him that Sheik Abbas had disappeared after being summoned to the Saudi capital of Riyadh and that Scimitar's friends were currently running things. Instead, Pooh Bear began using his contacts and resources to find out what Israel did to people like Stretch, discovering he had been categorised a Category 5 Enemies of the State of Israel, but was unable to determine where such prisoners were taken.

After a week, Pooh Bear decided his best option was to find another Category 5 Enemy of Israel and use them to find out where Stretch had been taken. Picking Wolfgang Linstricht, Pooh Bear located the former Nazi in Rio, and during the New Year's fireworks he caught Linstrict mid-coitus with a prostitute and knocked him unconscious. After forcing Linstricht to swallow a GPS transponder, Pooh Bear tipped off the Mossad, and over the next few days tracked the transponder until it stopped at the Dimona Nuclear Research Centre in the Negev desert. Covering himself with a camouflage thermal blanket, Pooh Bear made a slow approach towards Dimona's fence-line and waited and watched for an opportunity to break in.

Following the arrival of a uranium shipment, Pooh Bear made his move, and followed Linstricht's transponder to a set of ruins containing a bunker filled of tanks of formaldehyde containing people. Finding Stretch entombed in one of them, Pooh Bear prepared to free him, only to be hit by a sedative. Mordechai Muniz taunted the Arabian on his actions, having seen him on the base's monitors despite his efforts, and informed Stretch that he would get a rare event in watching his friend die. Fortunately, an explosion distracted Muniz, and moments later Jack arrived and got Pooh Bear back on his feet. As they released Stretch, Jack admitted the wristwatch he had given him was constantly revealing his location, and soon they and Zoe were enacting an escape plan out of Israel.

Once the whole team was reunited at Sea Ranger's base in Zanzibar to prepare their next move, Diane Cassidy suggested they focus their research on a prophecy in which five figures throughout history known as the Five Greatest Warriors would affect the Machine, the Pillars and the Vertices. As Cassidy explained, Moses, Jesus Christ, Genghis Khan and Napoléon Bonaparte all fit the descriptions in the prophecy, while the Fifth Warrior was unknown and set to be present during the Dark Star's return. Cassidy's suggestion turned out to be quite fruitful, and Pooh Bear and the rest of the team spent the next two months undergoing research to confirm the Five Warriors' connections to the Machine.

After Alby's investigations into Napoléon led him to discover that the final Sacred Stone, the Basin of Rameses II, was at the British Museum under a different name, Pooh Bear, Stretch, and then twins were dispatched to London to steal the Basin. To obtain the Basin, Pooh Bear wandered around the museum before leaving his backpack with a beeping Nintendo DS in the food-court, knowing that security had been watching him with some suspicion and initiated an evacuation when they heard his beeping backpack. As the twins snuck the Basin out in the commotion, Pooh Bear was taken in by security until they realised what the beeping was and apologised to the Arabian profusely.

When they finally got in touch with the rest of the team, Pooh Bear and the others were saddened to hear of Wizard's death in Mongolia, and Jack set them the task of locating the Spring of the Black Poplar to obtain the water they needed in the Basin. During the collaboration, Vulture and Scimitar interrupted the video-call and revealed they had kidnapped Alby and his mother, with Vulture surprised to see Pooh Bear still alive after leaving him in the mine.

Pooh Bear and the others made their way to Loch Ness, where some research into Isaac Newton suggested the Spring resided. After nearly a week, they finally found the Spring of the Black Poplar and collected enough of its water to give the remaining Pillars their second cleansing. Despite the lack of word from Jack's team since the laying of the third Pillar, Pooh Bear and the others began making their way back to London. However, moments after Julius uncovered the Fourth Vertex's location, their train was halted and Royal Marines moved in to surround Pooh Bear's team. When Iolanthe arrived, Pooh Bear offered to bargain the Vertex's location, but the British royal stated she was only there as a messenger.

After Iolanthe established a video-call to Siberia, Pooh Bear and his team were brought in on the Russian royal Carnivore's show of prisoners he had at his base, including Jack's team, Scimitar and their father. After calling out his brother for his treachery, Carnivore revealed his intention to take the Pillars and their rewards and manipulate everyone else into completing the Machine's restoration for him, offering Pooh Bear the chance to free his father if he and his team placed the Fourth Pillar and gave it to his British relatives.

Reluctantly agreeing to Carnivore's demands, Pooh Bear and the others were escorted to Lundy Island by Iolanthe's Marines and made their way into the Vertex. However, as he and Stretch were figuring out the trap system, they got caught on a separate ledge and forced to guide Julius and Lachlan down to the inverted pyramid's peak. Once the Pillar was laid, Pooh Bear left the Vertex, and were surprised to find themselves being rescued by their Irish liaison Cieran Kincaid.

Establishing contact with Jack, they made plans to reunite and find the Tomb of Jesus Christ to recover the final Pillar before Scimitar, Vulture and Mao Gongli. Upon arrival in the Dead Sea, Pooh Bear and the others found the Halicarnassus and disabled the guards before he and Stretch made their way into the abandoned Roman salt mine. Following Jack's trail of glowsticks, they soon found their teammates at Vulture and Scimitar's mercy. After establishing that his brother would not back down, Pooh Bear engaged his brother in close-combat, but was outmatched and had his left eye cut out. Before Scimitar could deliver the final blow, Pooh Bear set some of his C4 on his knife and held it beneath his brother's throat, which detonated and fatally wounded him, and Pooh Bear used the distraction to throw his knife into Vulture's throat.

Jack, Lily and Iolanthe helped the injured Pooh Bear and Stretch depart the mine, only to find that Carnivore and his forces were waiting for them at the Halicarnassus, led their by Kincaid. In his injured state, Pooh Bear could do nothing to stop Carnivore from taking the final Pillar and Lily, and once Jack had patched up the team as best he could, opted to head to the final Vertex on Easter Island himself. Pooh Bear watched with the others as Jack took flight on the damaged Halicarnassus, and then they prepared to make their way back to civilisation.

After calling on his old regiment to help, Pooh Bear and the others went to Carnivore's base and released the captives from the Living Tombs, including his father. As Abbas recovered from the ordeal over the next few days, Pooh Bear told him about Scimitar's betrayal; though he was disheartened by his eldest son's treachery, Abbas took comfort in the fact that he had at least one son who remained noble.

A few weeks later, Pooh Bear was present to watch as Jack and Zoe got married in a small civil ceremony.

Between The Five Greatest Warriors and The Four Legendary Kingdoms[]

After the loss of his left eye, Pooh Bear took to wearing an eye-patch over the wound.

During the course of the next eight years, the members of the Coalition team continued largely as they had before, returning to their home nation while making the odd visit to one another. At some point during this time, Pooh Bear met Jack's mother Mae Merriweather, who couldn't help but comment on Pooh Bear's lack of a girlfriend whenever she saw him.

In 2016, after Jack's presence was requested at Pine Gap for his expertise in relation to something they had discovered through the Square Kilometer Array, Pooh Bear and Stretch agreed to meet Jack and the others there as soon as they could.

The Four Legendary Kingdoms[]

Immediately upon their arrival at Pine Gap, Pooh Bear and Stretch noticed that the Sky Warrior wasn't present and that there were no guards anywhere. Upon entering the main building they found several dead guards and the body of General Eric Abrahamson, but there was no sign of Jack or the others. After Stretch detected the odor of chloroxipham in the air, they searched the base for any messages Jack might have left them, finding a spoon with a symbol and the initials for Jack's mother on it. Realising that Jack meant for them to seek Mabel out, Pooh Bear and Stretch opted to go and speak with her before they could be delayed by authorities that might question them, but before first recovered the injured Horus.

As they journeyed to Broome, Pooh Bear and Stretch looked at the GoPro footage Horus had captured with the camera on her neck, and from it discovered that Iolanthe was behind the capture of Jack and the others. After leaving Horus at an animal shelter, the pair went to speak with Mae, and when she spied them she again commented on Pooh Bear's absent love-life. After explaining the situation and showing her the symbol, Mae explained to Pooh Bear and Stretch her life-long study into the shadow rulers of the world known as the Four Legendary Kingdoms, which she suspected included the Deus Rex line Iolanthe belonged to, and that the symbol matched a galaxy Isaac Newton had theorised the existence of.

During their research into the Hydra galaxy symbol, the trio briefly discussed the birdman races of Easter Island and how they may have been influenced by a set of ancient great games. Pooh Bear decided to look into modern day purchases of Newton's works, discovering one had been purchased by Anthony DeSaxe, which surprised Mae as she revealed her suspicion that the DeSaxe's were members of one of the Four Kingdoms. After briefly speaking with UAE Intelligence, Pooh Bear uncovered tapped phone transcripts regarding DeSaxe, with the group discovering that DeSaxe had recently spoken to Iolanthe regarding a substitute in the great games, concluding that Jack and the others had somehow been roped into a modern set of great games. Needing to find out where the games were taking place, Mae suggested they visit the blood antiquities dealer Sunil Malik.

Upon arrival in Karachi, Pooh Bear and Mae approached Malik's mansion to inquire about DeSaxe's recent purchase from him, a tablet of the ninth poem of the Epic of Gilgamesh with extra lines that were instructions to locate the Underworld. When Malik turned on them, Pooh Bear led Mae as they escaped through the streets, aiding by Stretch's sniping until they reached safety. As they went over the information they had gathered thanks to Malik, Mae concluded that with the Underworld's suspected location being on land owned by DeSaxe that he was the modern-day Hades, and so the group prepared to make their way there.

After arriving in northwest India, Pooh Bear and the others began searching along the coastline for signs of an entrance to the Underworld, eventually coming across Alby, Sky Monster and others being harassed by a chopper. After bringing it down, Pooh Bear and the others reunited with their friends and their new allies, who explained that Jack had been forced to participate in the Great Games of the Hydra and that he and Lily were still in the Underworld. After Alby came up with a plan to get an army of minotaurs to aid them in getting their friends back, Pooh Bear and Stretch helped Sky Monster repair the chopper and flew on to the Underworld.

Arriving just as the ceremony to divert the Hydra galaxy was underway, once Sky Monster brought down the camouflage netting covering the Underworld and the relay antennae linked to an explosive in Jack's neck, Pooh Bear and Stretch manned the guns and fired at the mountain while their others joined the minotaurs in locating Jack and Lily. Once they and their other allies had been recovered, they journeyed on to the mine where the Sky Warrior was parked, and from there Pooh Bear and the others proceeded on to the West farm to recover from the ordeal.

The Three Secret Cities[]

After a brief catch-up between the group and Zoe, Pooh Bear and Stretch headed back to Dubai, agreeing to take Iolanthe with them along the way.

A few days later, as the rest of the team was en-route to New York, Hades received a message from Minotus that a silver coffin had opened and unleashed a monstrous "bronze man" that was attacking the minotaurs. Since his friends were closer, Jack tasked Pooh Bear and Stretch with going to the Underworld to investigate.

Upon arriving at the Underworld, Pooh Bear and Stretch were led to Minotus, who explained to the pair that they had managed to trap the bronze man, at the loss of 150 minotaurs. When he gazed upon the inhuman-looking automaton, Pooh Bear gasped in shock. Minotus added that to every person it met, the bronze man asked them a question in an unknown language and killed everyone who failed to answer. Having a suspicion, Stretch called Lily and goaded the automaton to speak its question, asking Lily if it was speaking Thoth. Lily confirmed and translated the bronze man's question, "Are you my master?", leading Jack to recall that an army of these Bronze Guardians was a reward for the King who was supposed to receive the Mysteries. As Minotus confirmed that there were hundreds more of the silver coffins containing the bronzemen, Jack instructed Pooh Bear and the others to do what they could to prevent the rest of the silver coffins in the Underworld from opening.

After eventually managing to do so, Pooh Bear and Stretch were called upon by Zoe to help rescue Jack, who had been imprisoned at the Royal Prison of Erebus by the Four Kingdoms for his actions at the Great Games. Together the trio infiltrated the area by swimming up the Algerian coastline in the hopes of avoiding any detection systems. As they found Jack embedded in stone and prepared to set him free, Yago DeSaxe and his guards revealed they had been aware of their approach, and informed them that they had earned their own place on the Wall of Misery. Luckily help arrived completely unexpected when a man dropped in and took down all of the guards single-handedly. Introducing himself as bounty hunter Aloysius Knight, an old friend of Scarecrow's who had asked him to help Jack, he helped Pooh Bear and the others free Jack and Hades from their slabs.

Once Jack asserted that they would next rescue Lily and Alby from the Knights of the Golden Eight's base at Aragon Castle, Pooh Bear joined the assault. Following Knight's suggestion for a shock-and-awe approach, Pooh Bear and Stretch took up a risky task by sitting in a Challenger 2 similar to the one the Knights had recently used in London as it was dropped by parachute into the waters around the island (a task Pooh Bear was nervous about since there was every chance the Knights would simply shoot the tank). Landing as the rest of the team began their assault, Stretch and Pooh Bear dove to where Alby's cage had been dropped, rescuing the young man before he could drown, though Pooh Bear still grumbled about Knight's plan and questioned where Jack had found him.

With Lily having being taken by the Trismagi Sphinx and the Trial of the Cities still needing to be completed, Pooh Bear joined the rest of the team in setting out to reach the Cities and ensuring the Immortal Weapons were empowered in case Orlando's people failed. Flown to Iceland by Sky Monster, Pooh Bear and Stretch planned to locate the Secret City of Thule using the coordinates Iolanthe, Mae and Nobody has obtained from Sir Francis Drake's coffin.

After convincing the Trismagi watchman Sir Bjorn to let them pass, Pooh Bear and Stretch entered Thule and observed the situation, seeing Cardinal Ricardo Mendoza and his Swiss Guards trapped between hundreds of Bronze Guardians and a few silver ones on a cupola preceding the City's vault. While Pooh Bear lamented about not having a Maghook to help get them past the Bronze Guardians, Stretch instead came up with the idea to climb around the outside of the battlements to make their way down to the bridge.

Having been informed by Jack that the Weapons were the key to getting past the Guardians, Stretch took the Sword of the Rock from Mendoza and engaged the silvermen, with Pooh Bear defending him as Stretch brought down the first three automatons. But when the Israeli was cut badly by the final Guardian, Pooh Bear took up the Sword and finished it off. Pooh Bear then demanded that Mendoza treat Stretch's wounds before heading down to the vault, where the Arabian claimed the blue gem from the vault's diamond altar. By the time Pooh Bear returned with the empowered Sword, however, Mendoza and his remaining Swiss Guards threatened to kill Stretch unless he handed over the Sword. Pooh Bear was disgusted with the Cardinal for threatening his friend after they had helped them, but reluctantly complied and tossed the Sword to Mendoza, who then departed with the Weapon.

Unfortunately, Jack was too late to prevent Sphinx and his associates from sacrificing Lily on the Altar of the Cosmos. A couple of days after the trial had concluded, Pooh Bear, Alby and Stretch made their way to the Altar with the intention of retrieving Lily's body to give her a proper burial. Alby and Stretch kept watch as Pooh Bear carefully chiseled off the stone around Lily's face, but once Pooh Bear carefully chiseled off the stone around Lily's face, he was surprised by something he found, and then, happily, asked his friends to call Jack immediately.

The Two Lost Mountains[]

As Pooh Bear discovered, it was Alexander's body in the sacrificial pool at the Altar of the Cosmos and not Lily's, and so, after they extracted the abandoned Immortal Weapons and rendezvoused with the rest of the team at Hades's Estate in Alsace-Lorraine, they began using facial recognition software to comb the world's security cameras in the hope of finding Lily.

After a few weeks, Lily was discovered to be is Moscow, and so Pooh Bear, Stretch and Sky Monster set off for Russia in the Sky Warrior, with Jack, Knight and Alby intending to catch up. Once they arrived over Moscow, Stretch used Jack's Gull Wings to get to the ground while Pooh Bear and Sky Monster stayed aboard the Tupolev to be prepared for a quick extraction. Watching the feed from Stretch's mask of the city, Pooh Bear was shocked and confused by the sight of Moscow's citizens in a comatose state. Soon, however, Stretch called in a warning for the pair to don protective headphones and put the Sky Warrior on autopilot, which Pooh Bear managed to do right before a Siren bell rung over Moscow could knock him out.

Unfortunately, communications were jammed, preventing Pooh and Sky Monster from contacting the rest of the team while they escaped Sphinx's forces in Moscow. Soon after, as the Sky Warrior continued flying away on its automated flight path, Jack and Rufus attempted to contact the pair on the Sky Warrior, but were forced to assume that Pooh Bear and Sky Monster had been rendered comatose by the bell. When Sky Monster detected a missile fired from a Russian military satellite targeting the Tupolev, Pooh Bear and Sky Monster were forced to ditch the Sky Warrior and parachute out to safety before it was destroyed. While Jack assumed that Pooh Bear and Sky Monster had been killed in their sleep, the pair landed safely in some remote farmland.

With no means of communication, Pooh Bear and Sky Monster were forced to trek their way to the nearest regional airport, where they stole a plane and started heading back to Hades's estate, but still could no get in touch with the team.

Meanwhile, as Jack prepared to head to the first iron mountain, he opened Pooh and Monsters' Messages from the Other Side, reading Pooh Bear's short message containing an apology for having to leave the team (in the event of his untimely death).

Almost a day after the events in Moscow, Pooh Bear and Sky Monster arrived back at Hades's estate, only to find it in ruins after it had been attacked by Yago and his bronzemen. Taking a seaplane that had remained intact, the pair headed off again, soon discovering radio communications mentioning Jack at Mont Blanc's Aiguille du Midi. Rushing to the French Alps, Pooh Bear and Sky Monster arrived just as an observatory Jack and the others were in was sent sliding down the slope after being hit by a missile. From the side-door, Pooh Bear urged the others to jump onto the seaplane's pontoons, managing to catch Jack at the last second. Once they had landed safely nearby, Pooh helped explain what had happened to him and Monster.

After the team had reconvened to figure out their next move in locating one of the two lost mountains so that they could perform the Fall and get into the Supreme Labyrinth, Pooh Bear briefly spoke up during the discussion to question what the Sword of Saint Michael was, and was informed by Lynda Fadel that it was a metaphorical sword serving as a ley line. As Jack started to suspect that the fourth mountain was beneath the Dome of the Rock at Temple Mount, Pooh Bear observed that it was third holiest site in the Islamic religion.

Accompanying Jack to Jerusalem, Pooh Bear and Easton obtained a van and waited at the Old City's Jaffa Gate. But as Jack returned rattled after seeing Mae killed at the iron mountain, Pooh Bear 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, Pooh 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 Pooh Bear 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 Pooh and Stretch joined the Wests as they drove as police cruiser to the Sphinx. As they approached the monolith and heard radio chatter from the Order of the Omega monks, Pooh Bear commented on the strangeness of a Catholic group using a base with the name Lucifer, which Jack explained to be an observatory. As the West family headed in to perform the Fall, Pooh Bear and Stretch remained up top by the Sphinx to guard the entrance.

Once Jack, Lily, Jack and Zoe received the burning key needed for entrance into the Supreme Labyrinth and the team began preparations to break through Sphinx's defences at the gates, Jack took Pooh Bear and Stretch aside and tasked them, Lynda and Tracy with finding out what the Four Legendary Kingdoms were planning for after the Omega Event, since they might not all support Sphinx. As he was handed a copy of Jack's Message from the Other Side, Pooh promised that they would take care of it before watching the rest of the team head off for the Supreme Labyrinth.

The One Impossible Labyrinth[]

To begin their mission to discover the Four Kingdoms' plans, Pooh Bear, Stretch, Tracy and Lynda made their way to a U.S. base in Bavaria, where they began working to intercept communications between the shadow royals. Eventually, Pooh Bear and the rest learned that their enemies were enacting a refuge plan called the Storm Cellar Protocol, in which royal families given approval by Sphinx's underlings were to head to one of three shelters to wait out the chaos occurring because of the Omega Event. Questioning who the man in charge of the affair, Sir John Marren was, Pooh Bear learned that Marren was the Four Kingdoms' royal banker and an old friend of Sphinx's, and so suggested to his allies that they kidnap him to get more information.

Pooh Bear and Stretch went to Salzburg and laid in wait in a limousine for Marren to arrive at the Salzburg Airport, with the latter pretending to be the limo's driver awaiting the royal banker to lure him into their trap. Once Marren was in the limo, Pooh Bear held him at gunpoint while introducing Stretch and himself as friends of Jack and informed him that he was coming with them, swiftly taking Marren back to their plane and taking off before anyone realised what was going on.

Pooh Bear's team landed in Lyon and began heading to Marseille by road in a police van to throw off any pursuers and obtain a less conspicuous airport to reach the United States. While en-route, they made contact with Iolanthe's team to check on each other's progress; Iolanthe commended Pooh's team on their bold move, but warned that Marren was ruthless and to watch him closely. Indeed, Marren raged at Pooh Bear and the others, assuring them that he would have them tortured and begging for death once he was rescued, though he did disclose that nature of the world Sphinx intended to rule. Pooh asked why Marren had planned to go to Washington, D.C. rather than stay in Europe, and though he and Stretch demanded the master list for all of the royal families of the Four Kingdoms and their loyalists, Marren refused and insisted that they were idealists who would fail.

Once they had acquired a new plane and set course to Washington, the team prepared to wait out the journey, with Pooh Bear sitting in the cockpit to keep an eye on the autopilot since he couldn't sleep. After he began reading his copy of Asimov's Foundation, Pooh Bear was interrupted by Tracy, who was intrigued by his choice of reading. The pair then began a three-hour conversation about the series, unknowingly observed by Stretch and Lynda, who were both amused and glad to see Pooh and Tracy getting along so well. Eventually, their discussion was rudely interrupted as their plane was remotely hacked and their course changed, as Marren had managed to tip off his friends to their whereabouts.

As they neared their new destination at the Raven Rock base - where some of the Four Kingdoms were sheltering - Pooh and the others began preparing a plan to turn the tables on their enemies, with Pooh Bear wiring up the plane with explosives. Once they had landed and sent Marren out, Pooh marveled at Stretch's correct assumption about Marren contacting the royals and getting them brought to Raven Rock, and at his friend's signal, Pooh Bear detonated the explosives and destroyed the plane. As the Golden Knight and Delta commandos were caught off-guard, the quartet leapt into action and started firing on their enemies, and after Stretch took down the Knight, Pooh Bear took his Ring of Command and usurped control of the battalion of bronzemen present, before proceeding on into the base.

Taking the master list from Marren's body, Pooh and the rest of the team then used their bronzemen to roll a Siren bell into the base and had it rung, sending the families of the Four Kingdoms taking shelter within into the siren sleep. They were soon contacted by the rest of the team, learning that Jack had successfully thwarted the Omega Event, and Pooh Bear helped to relay his team's success in obtaining the list with the members of the Four Kingdoms.

As the world got back to normal in the aftermath of the events of the trials and Sphinx's actions, Pooh Bear went out on several dates with Tracy over the next year, eventually becoming engaged. During the glamourous wedding ceremony, Stretch and Jack served as Pooh's best man and second groomsman respectively.

Personality[]

Pooh Bear is a kind and honest soldier, who believes firmly in his teammates and their decisions in the field. Though at times he had been easily embarrassed and exasperated whenever the young Lily asked him questions about his religion, Pooh Bear has come to enjoy being around her, and has come to think of her and his teammates in the coalition as family.

The second son of Sheik Abbas couldn't be more different than his brother; whereas Scimitar has been intolerant of other cultures to a point, Pooh Bear has been more willing to accept them, though at first this was difficult for him. When Stretch joined the team, Pooh Bear was constantly wary of him, judging the Israeli largely based on his religion, leading to constant bickering. After learning of Stretch's decision to choose saving Lily over following orders, however, Pooh Bear realised that he had been wrong to judge Stretch solely by the rival upbringings that caused them to butt heads, and since then the two have been close friends.

Skills[]

  • Expert Combatant: As a soldier in the UAE's First Commando Regiment, Pooh Bear has been trained in several forms of hand-to-hand combat. He is able to handle himself well during a knife-fight, though his level of skill was inferior to Scimitar's.
  • Expert Marksman: Being a trained soldier, Pooh Bear is an accurate marksman and capable of using a variety of different firearms.
  • Explosives Expert: Pooh Bear is highly knowledgeable in demolition and explosives, and is prepared for some eventualities by keeping some C4 in his beard ring. He has used his knowledge of explosives to create an escape path for the team in Hamilcar's refuge, and could wire up an airliner that could be set off by a remote detonator.
  • Bilingualism: In addition to his native Arabic language, Pooh Bear is also fluent in English.

Equipment[]

Weapons[]

  • Sword of the Rock: One of the Three Immortal Weapons needed to empowered at Thule, after Stretch was injured taking on the Silver Guardians baring the way, Pooh Bear was forced to take up the Sword himself and finish the last Guardian off.

Vehicles[]

  • ICON A10 Seaplane: An amphibious light-sport aircraft previously owned by Zaitan DeSaxe called Sexy Prince Two, which Sky Monster and Pooh Bear took from Hades's estate to catch up to the team at Aiguille du Midi and rescue them from the crashing observatory.
  • Airbus A340-200: An airliner belonging to the President of Egypt, which Pooh Bear and the others took to transport themselves to Europe during their mission, but later left behind due to the need to be inconspicuous.
  • Air France 737: A French airliner which Pooh Bear and the others in his team used to cross from Europe to the United States. After being forced to land at Raven Rock, the team disembarked the plane, which Pooh Bear then blew up to catch their enemies off-guard.

Other Equipment[]

  • Eye Patch: A leather-made patch which Pooh Bear started wear to cover the wound in his left eye after Scimitar gouged it out.
  • Ring of Command: One of the four lesser rings which controls a small number of the bronze and silver guardians, which Pooh Bear took from a fallen Golden Knight.
    • Bronze Guardians: The ancient bronze-coloured automatons which guard the important locales of the Super-Ancients' trials. After killing a Golden Knight at Raven Rock, Pooh Bear took his Ring of Command, and thus gained control of the automatons at the base, using them to help take control of the base.
  • Siren Bell: One of the 14 bells that can induce a catatonic sleep-like state, which Pooh Bear and Stretch took control of while at Raven Rock, and used to knock out the gathered royals taking shelter within the base's bunker.

Relationships[]

Tracy Smith[]

Though they had not known each other long, Pooh Bear and Tracy quickly established a connection with one another during their shared mission to discover the Four Kingdoms' plans. They began bonding over a shared interest in Isaac Asimov's Foundation novel, sparking a three hour conversation. After the mission ended, the pair went on several dates over the course of a year before eventually marrying.

Trivia[]

  • In some publications of Seven Ancient Wonders, his first name is Aziz while in others it is Zahir. Subsequent novels continue using Zahir for the character's name.
    • Whether or not the name Aziz was a preliminary name Matthew Reilly originally intended before changing it and was missed before publication is unknown.
  • Pooh Bear is a slightly chubby fellow, uncommon in most soldiers. This, however, led to how Lily decided to give him his new nickname.
  • Pooh Bear, along with Jack, Lily, Zoe, Sky Monster and Stretch, is among the few characters who have appeared in every novel in the Jack West Jr Series.
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