Jake Felis

"Y’know, Tara, smoking can make you impotent."

- Jake Felis

Jake Felis is the protagonist of Zoids Odyssey, and a member of the Atro Venator team.

Appearence
Jake is an average looking guy who would blend seamlessly inhto a crowd. He is of average height, wears normal clothes and has hair too dark to be brown, but not dark enough to be black; "brlack", if you will. He is mostly clean shaven, except for his goatee.

Personality
Jake is a fun, goofy, happy-go-lucky sort of guy who is amused easily, not in a stupid way, but more of a random/curious one. He’s a fairly open minded, easygoing person. He’s confident, but not arrogant or cocky. He’s very observant, and can be sharp and witty when he wants to. Is loyal to his friends, and loves Zoids. Overall, he’s a kid-at-heart. He’s good friends with Tara, and often goes clubbing with her at night, although he doesn’t like to dance; he’s more of a people watcher. He gets along well with kids, but wouldn’t want any of his own; that’d require too much of a commitment on his part.

Jake is a careful, intelligent fighter. He tests out his opponent’s capabilities with a balanced mix of close and long range attacks before deciding on a course of action. He’s good at thinking on his feet, and is good at figuring out his opponent’s flaws and weaknesses.

History
Jake grew up in a small desert town somewhere in the Republic. He lived with his mother, a scientist who studied the feral Zoids who lived in the area.

One day, while they were out in the field together, Jake and his mother picked up a faint energy signature. they followed it, and found an unconcious Zoid buried under a pile of rocks. They took it home, fixed it up, and re-activated it. At first it was extremely aggressive, and wouldn’t let anyone near it, but after a while it calmed down. Eventually, it got used to them, and it kind of became the family pet. Jake was its primary caregiver, and he eventually learned how to pilot it. He also built armour for it, made of Hybrid Armour Z, an extremely powerful alloy that his mother had helped develop. They named it Liger Zero.

Jake's mother, through studies of feral Zoids and the Liger Zero, had come to suspect that Zoids were in fact sentient, intelligent beings, and not mere machines. Zoids appeared to communicate with eachother through a kind of ultrasonic rumbling, and various patterns in these rumblings seemed to suggest a rudimentary language of some sort. To test her hypothesis, Jake's mother wished to build a machine that she could use to decipher their rumblings; the only problem with this plan was that she lacked the funding to build such a device. Her colleagues scoffed at the idea that Zoids were actually talking to eachother, and she was unable to find a research grant.

Jake always loved Zoids, and hated seeing them mistreated. Feral Zoids, as wild animals, were believed to pose a threat to humans, and were constantly hunted down and destroyed. Through his interactions with Liger Zero, Jake had come to believe what his mother was suspecting; that Zoids were intelligent creatures, and that hunting them was tatamount to murder. Jake wanted more than anything to see this barbaric practice put to an end.

Then, he heard about the National Zoid Battling Tournament.

The winner of the NZBT would win a million Galos in prize money! It was exactly the sort of thing Jake's mother needed to fund her research. It wouldn't be easy; the top pilots from all over Zi would be participating. But Jake was confident that with the awesome power of the Liger Zero, he could win the tournament. It was the only thing he could do to stop the senseless slaughter of the so-called feral Zoids.

With this goal in mind, Jake set out on his own. Along the way, he met Tara Squamata, Aldo Theroe, and Clyde Bardolph, and the four of them founded the Atro Venator team.

Liger Zero
Jake's Zoid is the Liger Zero, a unique, custom Zoid of Jake's within the context of the Zoids Odyssey universe. Fast and manouverable, with strike laser claws and ion boosters, and equipped with the neigh impenatrable Hybrid Armour Zi, the Liger Zero is designed for and excels at close range combat. Its primary strength, however, is its status as a wild Zoid; wild Zoids are inherantly more powerful than regular Zoids, and more intelligent, capable of thinking and reacting far more quickly than humans or "normal" zoids.

Since the Changing Armour System does not exist in the Zoids Odyssey universe, Jake only ever used the base Zero armour, in stark contrast to canon Liger Zero pilots such as Bit and RD. Had the fic been finished, the other armour units would have appeared as cubs, birthed by Jake's Zero.

Behind the Scenes
The author of Zoids Odyssey recycled Jake's basic personality traits from Dennis, the protagonist of his original comic series, "Kreaturez". Other aspects of his character were inspired by Coop, the protagonist of the Cartoon Network series "Megas XLR"; specifically, his unremarkable appearence and flippant personality contrasted with his incredible piloting skills and badass custom mecha.