John J. Torres was an American pilot serving the United States Navy in the Atlantic Ocean during World War II. In 1942, Torres and the Texas Aces encountered a Yautja stalking the skies in search of prey.
Biography[]
in 1941, John was living in the rural US with his father, working as a mechanic, when he was drafted into WWII as a Navy pilot.
Encounter with Yautja pilot[]
By the next year, he was serving on an aircraft carrier in the Atlantic Ocean, when the sole survivor of one of their squadrons returned badly wounded, claiming that he saw "hooks in the sky".
While Captain Vandy led a squad to investigate, John extracted the harpoon from the survivor's plane, and realized it must've been alien technology, so he took off on a battered F4F Wildcat called "The Bullet" to warn his comrades.
When he reached the squad, the alien ship had already started attacking, using harpoons linked to parachutes and Netguns, and, as it took down the entire squad, he and the Captain understood that their attacker was targeting them with heat vision, so they ascended to maximum altitude and turned off their engines, succesfully landing some hits on its engines, while Vandy sacrifices himself to buy his some time; while rapidly descending, Torres turned the engine back on, letting the Predator chase him into enemy territory, where it's shot down by anti-air defenses.
John, thinking he's safe, heads for the ship, but the spaceship is still chasing him, even if badly damaged, so he floods the engine, lets the plane get hit by the harpoon, flies below it, making it stick to its own ship, and jumps out, while the plane's engine acts as a bomb, taking down the ship for good.
After the war, back at his garage, he is approached by another ship and abducted, ending up in cryostasis.
The Arena[]
Sometime later, he awakened in a cell, alongside Ronin Kenji and Viking warrior Ursa, and tries to communicate, only managing to present himself to the Ronin in rough Japanese.
The three are escorted to a gladiatorial arena, where a Yautja chief, dubbed Grendel King by Ursa, tells them they will have to fight each other to the death, and the winner will have to fight him; provided with a battle axe, Ursa starts fighting the two, driven by her lust for revenge for her son's death at the hands of a Predator, while Torres tries to reason with them, when a giant creature is released in the arena and swallows him whole, before getting killed by Kenji and Ursa together.
Unbeknownst to everyone else, Torres survives and manages to get ahold of the Wrist Gauntlet of an eaten guard, using it to cut his way out of the creature and deactivate the explosive collars they are wearing, while stealing a hoverbike to fly towards Grendel King's spaceship.
While Torres tries to undertand how to fly the ship, Kenji and Ursa fight the King, until he's blasted away by the ship's engines, so they jump on board to escape.
As they start flying away, a harpoon strikes the ship, tearing Kenji's arm right off, so Ursa decides to sacrifice herself, sliding down the cable and destroying the harpoon, getting captured by the guards in the process.
Torres and Kenji fly away, while Grendel King declares hunting season for them.
Equipment[]
Torres wore a pale shirt and a dog tag.