Match of the Millennium

Rexton Rodfield was born the second child of Richard and Juliana Rodfield, four years after his elder brother, Alex. The family lived at the time in one of the middle-class residential districts of Metro, but before Rex had learned to walk, the family fell upon hard times. Richard, a foreman in a factory, lost his job when the factory shut down during an industry slump. Still deep in mortgage debt, Richard struggled to find new employment, and the family found themselves forced to move into steadily cheaper and cheaper housing, until they ended up in the slums of the city, hampering Richard's employability still further. He ended up working odd jobs and turning to alcohol, creating a rift with the rest of his family.

It was thus that Rex and Alex ended up growing up in the slums. Where Alex went, Rex went, the older boy a role model and protector of his younger brother in the often harsh neighbourhood they lived in. Alex was a born athlete, admired locally for his prowess in street hockey and basketball, and while Rex also showed athletic talent, many considered Alex a potential NBA candidate.

The boys ran with a circle of friends, mostly Alex's age, which as they reached their teen years became a crew, then an outright gang as neighbourhood conditions deteriorated and groups began to tighten for protection and intimidation. Brawls with other gangs were frequent but rarely lethal, and the fact that Alex and Rex often came home bruised and bloody usually went unnoticed between their father's alcoholism and their mother being forced to work late hours to make ends meet.

Up to the time that Alex was sixteen years old and Rex twelve, the boys had run with their gang for protection but otherwise avoided illicit activities for the most part. About this time, though, the use of drugs and alcohol began to proliferate throughout the ranks. Alex caved in to the temptation and slowly began at first to abuse alcohol and marijuana, then as time went on, harder drugs. He began to miss basketball practices and skip out on work to drink or use, and by the time he graduated he had no prospects for an athletic career or post-secondary education.

Rex was deeply troubled by Alex's downslide. He had always seen Alex as something of a heroic figure, both in the sense of his athletic ability and force of personality and in his care and protection of his younger brother. Rex was repulsed by the change in Alex's ambition and personality when under the influence, seeing it as an imitation of their father, of whom Rex felt ashamed. The two brothers began to drift apart, polarized by drug and alcohol abuse.

To vent his outrage, Rex began turning more heavily to the hardcore punk rock scene and the straight edge lifestyle as he reached his late teen years, as well as frequently working out and generally trying to better himself. Basketball had become stigmatized to him, so he decided to begin making money through underground pit fighting circles, where he picked up the nickname 'Razor' for his straight-edge philosophy. He steadily toughened up more and more, and was even considering professional street fighting as he entered his mid twenties, when the situation with his brother came back to haunt him.

Alex, 29, showed up at Rex's apartment in the slums, strung out and broke. He explained to Rex that he owed a large sum of money to one of the local dealers - a bad situation to be in. Though Rex had the money, he still held a great deal of lingering anger toward his brother for what he had let himself become, and after chastising and shouting at him, he refused to give Alex anything, telling him that he had to deal with the consequences of his own actions. Alex left empty-handed and shamed.

Later that night, Rex was wracked with guilt, fearing for his brother's safety. He decided to take the money his brother needed and go looking for him, before the dealer and his gang caught up to him. When he found his brother, though, Alex was lying in the street, bleeding into the gutter from a stab wound. Rex tried to call for medical assistance, but at that time of night in that part of the city it was a futile endeavour. Both brothers apologised to each other before Alex bled out.

Alex's death rocked the Rodfield household. After the funeral, Rex confronted Richard, fearing that Alex's death would drive him deeper into the bottle, and Richard agreed finally to attempt recovery with the help of a twelve step program and Juliana. While this gave Rex some closure, he still felt that his brother's blood was on his hands - but not on his alone.

Rex knew the dealer who had had his brother murdered and where to find him. The man became a focal point of his anger - both for ruining lives, as Rex saw it, and taking the life of his kin. He tracked the man down, where he found him with a couple of fellow crew members, and attacked them with a baseball bat, and despite getting the crap kicked out of him, managed to beat the three of them within inches of their lives. He had begun a personal war against the drug trade, one that he continued both by attacking dealers on the streets without sanction and participating in street fights, where he fights to promote his anti-drug and alcohol philosophy.