Theodore Burns

Staff Sergeant Theodore Burns was a soldier in the Swen Republic Army. He is currently a special operative in SomniCorps.

History

Theodore served in Lithica, part of an ongoing war to liberate the New Leir Empire from the control of the terrorist group known as Dariel's Legacy. His eight year old daughter Madison would always ask him to take her teddy bear with him as a good luck charm. Despite this, at home, Theodore had family troubles. After Theodore revealed to his wife that he was willingly going on deployments, she divorced him due to him not spending enough time with his family. This was heartbreaking for Theodore, but nonetheless, he stayed in the army, still trying to support Madison in whichever way he could. During his time in service, Theodore had won numerous awards for his skills and knowledge in the battlefield. He became proficient in many different kinds of weapons, and he even went through drill sergeant school.

During one deployment, however, Theodore found himself in a firefight after his armored vehicle drove across an improvised explosive device. One of his own soldiers, Private First Class Harold Morton, was killed. Theodore managed to fight off the enemy, but he took a shot to the head which landed him in a coma.

Theodore was rushed to a medical helicopter and was treated to prevent blood loss, but he could not be woken up from his coma. As a last ditch attempt to save him, the medical personnel used a centuries old technique to transfer his soul into an artificial body - the same sort used on the Steel Sisters back in the Renaissance era. However, due to faulty medical equipment caused by recent bombings, they were forced to do the process unconventionally by transferring his soul into his daughter's teddy bear. Miraculously, the process worked, and he was fully concious and mobile.

Nonetheless, Theodore felt ashamed that he had gotten himself in such a state, believing that he could no longer serve his country effectively. He was not even sure how to reveal to his family about what happened. At first, he approached his daughter, playing it off as the girl’s imagination. When he met his wife again, it was a brief, heartfelt reunion, but ultimately, Theodore was rejected. This left him wandering the streets, homeless, and he quickly found himself resorting to alcohol and cigarettes. As he had no way of actually ingesting any of it, he became a teddy bear who simply smelled like cigar smoke and booze.

When SomniCorps discovered Theodore, he was given a new purpose. SomniCorps was unable to turn Theodore back into a human as historically, the old magic technique never considered an option to transfer a soul back into a human body, so they made do with his smaller size. He found himself taking the role of espionage, infiltrating the enemy. He was given a metal endoskeleton to provide him support and to give him the strength to carry a standard handheld pistol. He is also craft enough to be able to operate larger, ground-based weapons such as machine guns as well as sniper rifles.

Theodore longs for the day that he’ll be able to see his daughter in human form. But until then, he has chosen to continue his service albeit in a different form.