Blade

Blade

"Forget what you think you know. Vampires exist. My name is Blade. I was born half-human, half-vampire. They call me The Daywalker. I have all their strengths, none of their weaknesses except for the thirst. Twenty years ago, I met a man that changed that. Whistler. He taught me how to hold the thirst at bay. Taught me the rules. Gave me the weapons to hunt with: silver, garlic, sunlight. "

―Blade^[src]

Eric Brooks is a human-vampire hybrid who hunts vampires. Before he was born, his mother was attacked and bitten by a vampire, dying while giving birth to him. As he grew into puberty, he began exhibiting various vampire-like tendencies without their weaknesses. He was eventually found by Abraham Whistler, a vampire hunter who taught him to control his abilities and hunt vampires. Now, as Blade, Eric works to hunt down and thwart vampire plots around the globe. He is known as the legendary Daywalker to the vampires, who greatly fear him.

History

Blade

Eric Brooks is the son of Robert and Vanessa Brooks. Vanessa, a nurse, was attacked and bitten by a vampire while she was in pregnancy. Eric was born while his mother was dying, inheriting the powers of a vampire without developing their weaknesses, except for the thirst. For a time, Eric was fed with butcher's blood and stolen blood from the hospital by his father. When it became apparent that Eric could not be contained and his thirst could not be satisfied, Robert called in Abraham Whistler, an expert vampire hunter. Eric realized the nature of his thirst after saving a man from criminals in the back room of his shop, where he believed his father died due to a gunshot wound. Eric broke Whistler's leg and ran off.

Some time later, Eric was taken in by a street gang known as the Bad Bloods. However, due to his blood-thirst, Eric turned the members of the gang and departed. He then once again ran into Abraham Whistler, who became his helper, mentor, and lifelong friend. Whistler developed a serum that allowed Eric to hold off his vampiric thirst and taught him everything he knew about hunting, fighting, and killing vampires. Eric decided to change his name to Blade and has since then gained infamy among vampires for his ability to walk in the light of the day, often being called the Daywalker.

Years later, Blade is hunting Deacon Frost, a powerful young vampire, and destroying his vampire nightclubs. During an attack on one of the clubs, Blade badly wounded Quinn, one of Frost's retainers. He was interrupted by the police and did not finish the vampire, opting instead to track him. Having tracked the vampire to the hospital, Blade found that Quinn had already bitten the two doctors who were examining the creature. Seeing Dr. Karen Jenson, and seeing a resemblance to his mother, he refrained from destroying her and took her with him instead.

Blade decided to use Jenson as bait for Frost and let her go back home. There she was attacked by one of Frost's Familiars, a police officer. Blade intervened and beat him ruthlessly, just to follow him again to the hideout of a vampire archivist named Pearl. Blade and Karen interrogated him, and found out Frost's plans regarding La Magra, a legendary vampire blood god. The two were then attacked by Quinn and Mercury, but managed to escape thanks to Whistler's arrival.

Blade is then out to get some serum from one of his allies but, when he comes back to the base, finds out that Karen has been kidnapped by Frost and Whistler has been bitten. Blade can't shoot his mentor and so gives him the gun, letting him commit suicide. Enraged, Blade attacks Frost's mansion, with the new weapon granted by Karen, the EDTA, a blood thinner that proves to be lethal to vampires. In here, Blade finds out that his mother is still alive as a vampire, and that she's become one of Frost's lovers. Shocked, he's easily captured by Frost's men and taken to La Magra temple. In here, he's put in a special sarcophagus, in which is drained of all his blood, which is the key for freeing La Magra. Exhausted, Blade is saved by Karen, who managed to free herself as well. The woman lets Blade bite her for regaining his strength, just in time for a fight with his mother, who he kills.

With all of his abilities returned, Blade killed most of Frost's minions, Quinn included. Eventually, he confronted Frost, who had become a vessel of La Magra. With his sword proving to be useless on the blood god, Blade attacked him with EDTA, killing him. Finally, Blade and Dr. Karen Jenson exited from the temple and Karen asked Blade if he wants to be cured. The cure would end Blade's thirst for blood, but at the cost of losing his vampire strengths. Blade refused, wanting to continue his battle. He was later seen in Russia, pursuing a vampire: he was following the vampires who transformed Whistler and kidnapped him.

Blade II

After two years of researches, Blade has finally tracked down the vampires who kidnapped Whistler in Prague: he kills them all and frees his old friend, taking him back to the base for curing him. Along with Scud, his new assistant, Blade injects Whistler with the cure and manages to heal him, gaining his mentor. Blade, anyway, doesn't seem to really trust him.

On that very night, Blade is reached by two messengers, who prove to be even skillful fighters. They present themselves as Nyssa Damaskinos and Asad, who ask Blade and his companions to follow them to Eli Damaskinos' place. The three hunters meet the elderly vampire lord, who, after thanking Blade for killing Deacon Frost, asks for their help: a plague, called the Reaper Virus, is spreading all over Prague, carried by Jared Nomak, the first of the new race. Nomak is biting humans and vampires alike, and the virus is spreading much faster than the normal vampire one. Blade agrees and meets The Bloodpack, an elite vampire squad created for hunting Blade but now forced to be his ally. In order to be feared, if not respected, by the Bloodpack, Blade reacts to Reinhardt's provocations by implanting in his head a remote controlled explosive.

The team goes to the House of Pain, a vampires night club. In here, they find a group of Reapers: they soon find out that the new kind of vampires are much more strong than the normal ones and that their weapons are useless against them. Priest is killed, but the other members of the team, thanks to Whistler, manages to capture a Reaper alive. Nyssa, after the Reaper died for hunger, performed an autopsy on him, and discovers that their only weak point is sunlight, since their heart is covered with bones. During this time, Blade and Nyssa begins to get along, with Nyssa trying to convince Blade to accept his true nature.

The team finds the enemies' base in Prague's sewers and goes down, with the new weapon developed by Whistler and Scud, sunlight grenades. The hunters are soon attacked by the Reapers. Blade manages to activate the grenades, killing all the Reapers, but is exhausted at the end of a fierce battle, which have, as only survivors of the Bloodpack, Blade, Reinhardt and Nyssa. The three are taken to Damaskinos' palace, where they discover that Nomak is not a mutant, but a genetic experiment of Damaskinos, and that Reinhardt and Scud were spies. Reinhardt mocks Blade and tells him that the bomb was a fake assembled by Scud, and gives the bomb to the boy; Blade tells them that he knew Scud was a traitor from the beginning, and that the bomb is actually a real one, and makes it explode, killing the mole. Blade is later taken to a lab by Karl Kounen, who wants to kill and dissect him, but Whistler intervenes and save his friend.

Blade goes on rampage and kills all of Damaskinos' men, Reinhardt included, and reaches the roof, wanting to prevent Damaskinos to flee. Once there, he finds out that Nomak was in the building too, and that he already killed Eli and bit Nyssa. Nomak offers Blade and alliance, but he refuses and starts a fight, during which Blade is in great difficulty against the Reaper. Just when he's about to be killed, Blade uses a fragment of his shattered sword and impales Nomak, reaching the only point without bone armor of his heart. Blade than takes a dying Nyssa to the roof, where he kisses her just a moment before dawn arrives, incinerating her.

Blade and Whistler leaves Prague, but not before Blade kills Rush, a vampire he left alive during Whistler's rescue.

Blade: Trinity

While on hunt, Blade attacks a group of vampires and kills them all. The last one manages to flee, but Blade reaches him and impales him. He soon finds out that he was a Familiar posing as a vampire, with Danica Talos filming the scene from afar. Blade has fallen in a vampires' trap: the world, in fact, unaware of vampires' existence, believes him to be a serial killer, and FBI has now the evidences against him.

Blade and Whistler are tracked down by two FBI agents, Wilson Hale and Ray Cumberland, who attack their base with a SWAT team. Whistler is killed during the battle, and Blade is arrested. He's later interrogated by a psychiatrist, Edgar Vance, who's in reality a Familiar of the House of Talos. He declares that Blade is mentally unstable and calls some personal from a criminal asylum, Danica and her minions, to take him. Blade is rescued at the last moment by Hannibal King and Abigail Whistler, two hunters members of the Nightstalkers. He's taken to their base, in which he's informed of Dracula's existence and of Danica's plans to resurrect him. Blade, although being a loner, agrees to fight on the side of the Nightstalkers, guiding them in the battle against Dracula.

With King and Abby, Blade starts a massive hunt, reaching for last Vance's office. In here, they find out that Drake has already killed the psychiatrist and is posing as him. King is wounded and Blade follows Drake on the rooftops, where he receives a formal challenge from him. Having to save a newborn, Blade lets Drake escape, with the promise of a future fight.

Blade is later acknowledged of a bioweapon developed by Sommerfield, one of the Nightstalkers: the Daystar, a special virus which, once fused with Drake's blood, will destroy the vampire race. There's a risk that Blade will be killed too, but he declares to be ready for it. He then goes out on hunt with Abigail, King being incapacitated on bed. The two finds out of vampires' "Final Solution", which is a true apocalypse for human race: many men and women are held captive in a comatoes state and used as infinite blood supplies. Blade kills Martin Vreede, he chief of police who's a Familiar, and destroys the Final Solution storage. When he and Abigail come back to the base, they find out that Drake has killed all the Nightstalkers and kidnapped Hannibal King and Zoe, Sommerfield's little child. After taking the only Daystar sample existing, the two prepare to go to Talos' place to rescue their companions and kill Drake.

Once in the palace, after a brief fight with Jarko Grimwood, Blade reaches Drake and engages a spectacular sword fight with him. The two are perfectly matched, with none of them managing to prevail. Eventually, Drake assumes his true form, the one of a towering demon, who proves to be much superior to Blade. The Daywalker is overpowered and is about to be killed, when Abby tries to shoot the Daystar charged arrow on the vampire. Drake grabs it in midair and lets it fall on the ground. As he's about to impale Blade with his sword, Blade grabs the arrow and stabs him with it, freeing the virus. Exhausted, he lays on the ground beside Drake, who tells him he's not afraid anymore of the future of his race, since Blade can be a true heir for him, and tells him he has a last gift for him. Drake transforms into Blade, allowing the real one to escape while the FBI agents take the wrong body. Since the Daystar wasn't as lethal as it should've been, Blade is continuing his long-lasting battle against vampires.

Personality

Blade is a cynical individual who is highly determined to rid the earth of vampires. He is known to be stoic, cold, and holds a temper. Like many in the vampire hunting community, Blade holds a deep grudge against vampires, mainly because of the death of his mother when she was killed by Deacon Frost and being half-vampire, he has an unquenchable thirst for blood which caused him major problems as he killed and drained people in his youth. Despite his cold demeanor, Blade is not without a heart; he saved Karen Jenson, a nurse, when she was nearly killed by a vampire and later took her in as a partner. Blade holds a tremendous amount of respect for Abraham Whistler, his mentor, weaponsmith, and father figure. His friendship with Whistler was so strong that Blade could not bear to end him of his misery when he was brutally tortured by Frost and his men. When Whistler sacrificed himself, Blade goes through an emotional breakdown and becomes depressed after he gets arrested by the FBI, devastated by his mentor's death. 

Although emotionless most of the time, Blade does smile and rarely shows his feelings. Evidences is when Whistler is cured of his vampire virus and toying with the other vampires. He was also somewhat sympathetic toward Nyssa Damaskinos of the Bloodpack, recognizing her as someone with a sense of honor similar to his own despite her being a vampire. He was even visibly saddened by her death, holding her in his arms as she was being incinerated by the sunlight.  

Blade is known to be a 'lone-wolf' as he completes his missions alone and dislikes using sidekicks unless the situation is dire. The only exception is Karen, who was quite useful to him and Whistler. Blade was relatively and understandably uncomfortable with working alongside the Bloodpack as they were originally trained to kill him and the Nightstalkers because most of the members were are young and not really serious about their job as vampire hunters. 

Powers & Abilities

"Blade's mother was attacked by a vampire while she was pregnant. She died, but he lived. Unfortunately, he'd undergone certain genetic changes. He can withstand garlic, silver, even sunlight. And he's got their strength."

―Abraham Whistler

Blade possesses all of a vampire's strengths and none of their weaknesses, except for blood-thirst. He attempts to suppress the thirst with a serum, but his body eventually develops a resistance to it. However, Dr. Karen Jenson, makes a more efficient serum upon meeting Blade. Although he does not want to drink blood, he has been known to be capable of it; prior to the development of the serum, Blade was feeding on the homeless and he only ingests blood when in a position where he is badly injured and needs to be back at full strength as soon as possible.

Blade's half-vampire physiology results in him being completely immune to silver, garlic, and sunlight. He has superhuman strength, speed, stamina, agility, reflexes, and senses. He also has a healing factor that allows him to heal completely from wounds overnight, although he is sometimes forced to drink blood to accelerate his usual healing abilities when faced with an immediate threat and too badly injured to confront it on his own. While he is only half-vampire, Blade's saliva still produces the enzyme that turns humans into vampires. Blade is a master of martial arts, practices meditation, and can speak various languages including the vampire language to a degree, and he has a great deal of knowledge about hunting vampires.

Equipment

Blade employs a stylized double edge sword as one of his main offense and defense tools. It is equipped with an acid-etched titanium blade that has a security feature that will release blades into the wielder's hand after a set time. This is aborted by Blade or others who know of the system by pushing a hidden switch in the sword's hilt. He uses varieties of throwable glavies (boomerang or chakram-like weapons that return when thrown), knives, silver-coated stakes, and firearms. He also uses specialized weapons, such as throwable injector canisters filled with anticoagulant which is explosively lethal to vampires, and extendable injector spikes worn on the back of the hand.