Background

Benjamin Knight was born in London, England April 22nd 1981, the only child of Mark Knight and Sara Knight, Mark was a man whose name was associated with wealth and power in the fashion industry, a self made billionaire. His mother Sara on the other hand was kind and soft, she was the daughter of a Russian billionaire herself and a Russian national, teaching Ben both English and Russian as he grew over 8 years, often speaking to him entirely in Russian to have some privacy within the bustling gates of their estate. He made many friends out on the street, most notably of which was Chang, they spent hours playing Curby, Tag, hide and seek, football and just generally being kids. In the 4 years after his father had him homeschooled, encouraging the learning of Russian and furthering his understanding of English, bringing in multiple tutors to teach him. At 12 years old they relocated to Tokyo, where he was given the finest language tutors money could buy. His father placed him in an elite private school, not just for education, but to ensure he built relationships with the children of influential and wealthy potential business partners. He picked up Japanese quickly, when he wasn't trying to learn it in school he had an experienced tutor, he also excelled in Judo, training under a world-class master in his school's club. His birthdays turned into networking events where Mark solidified business deals with the parents of Benjamin’s classmates, never allowing his son anything outside of something that benefited himself. [TW: Abuse] A lot of his time was spent in tutoring, learning Japanese. The only saving grace was when he was hanging out with one of the "approved friends" as his father called them, the children of the wealthy and powerful, hoping to bring them even closer. However anyone and everything else was second to his languages, he spent years with his entire routine being wake up, school, tutoring, sleep. There was never any breaks, never any rest, he would learn the language so one day he could bring Mark's fashion business here to Japan. Somewhere along the line Mark went sour, his father would be smiles when business was good, but straight to the bottle when business was bad, it was the worst when he supervised Ben's tutoring, he could take the insults when he fumbled a pronunciation, he could take the beatings when he didn't know a word, but he couldn't take the responsibility, his father constantly saying between swings of a belt that Ben was "going to run the business one day", that "he was going to bring it global", he hated the idea of what might be if he didn't do it, almost as much as he hated hiding the bruises on his body. [End of TW] They moved around quite a bit, once mark had exhausted the usefulness of Ben’s classmates they’d go somewhere else, this time, at 13 they moved to Kobe where he met his new best friend and her brother, Kailani and Yasuo. He spent years protesting his life, he hated how he never got a real birthday, never got something purely for himself. By the time they reached Spain at 17, Benjamin had had enough, he refused to learn another language, another skill. he shut himself off, training only in what he already knew and writing to his old friends instead of making new ones, as a hobby to pass the time he picked up woodworking, making complex arts out of wooden blocks and even making things like furniture. Mark was outraged by his son’s refusal and tried to force Benjamin’s hand, but he refused to budge. Benjamin had enough, he wanted a life away from his parents for just a few months, so he took some of his monthly allowance, got them changed to dollars and made his way to Florida for a holiday on a tourism visa. For months he was among friends, drinking and partying, spending his 18th birthday in Florida. One day he noticed something, the swamps started growing daisies. Within a few months planes were grounded, he didn't care. In a few weeks longer things started to shut down out of fear, he didn't care. But when they began preventing people from going to bars and quarantining them then he cared, all he wanted to do was party, and now this was taking that away from him. He travelled West, ending up in Texas where he met a small child of 11 years old named Alice Douglas. He was going to leave her behind, but after a moment thought he realised an orphan wouldn’t make it very far in this new world, so he took her in. Over the years they moved between north and south, headed up to Old Springfield in the summer and back down to the Texas QZ in the winter, avoiding the worst of the Bloomers. After 5 years Alice had become a daughter to Benjamin, he cared for her every day, even nearly killed people to protect her, to earn money to keep her fed he occasionally sat and watched as people were being tortured, people who couldn’t speak English, groups of raiders that needed information would torture them and he'd sit there and translate, he hated it, he hated that this was the way things needed to be so he could feed his daughter, but he knew it was the only way, he cried himself to sleep his fair share of nights, regretting what he had done, or rather what he hadn't for those poor souls. He eventually met a rancher family, the Callahan’s, they hired Ben as security for their aging leader and frequent trade caravans, though Ben always rather avoided violence he looked scary enough. The next 5 years were much the same as the last, though he grew closer to the family with his daughter, eventually becoming a part of their family and no longer a hired goon. They decided to move east, back to the family ranch in the Kentucky QZ. Before they managed to get there they encountered a group of raiders, to avoid bloodshed they opted to sneak around them, though in the dark of night Ben and Alice accidentally split up from the main group. They figured that they’d meet them at Kentucky and pressed on for a week until they eventually arrived.