Prince Jack of Cotton was born on Planet Squid 3 years before Book 1. His father was Lord Jimenez, the King of the city-state of Squid Town, and his mother was Alyx of Cotton, a member of the Ishga royal family. Although he was of royal blood and was next in line for the throne, his parents decided to give him as normal of an upbringing as possible to prevent him from becoming spoiled and letting the power go to his head once he became king. In the year 2 AR when he was 5 years old, the evil warlord Tate and his henchmen invaded Planet Squid. Since he needed a way to distract the planet's major powers from what he was trying to do there, Tate decided to get the planet's tribes in an all-out war with each other. Tate accomplished this by kidnapping Jack of Cotton and doctoring evidence to make it look like the Zebu Tribe did it. Enraged, Lord Jimenez declared war on the Zebus, as well as getting the various tribes of the Savannah to ally with him and declare war on the Zebus. Soon after, however, Weasel and his friends landed on the planet and defeated Tate and his forces, and Jack was freed and returned to his parents in the process. After this, Prince Jack's parents became much more protective of their son, often encroaching on his ability to make his own decisions. Less than a year later, Tate pulled off a coup and took control of Aurea, using its massive military to rapidly occupy almost the entire galaxy, including Planet Squid. As a result, Jack, along with his parents, were forced to flee to Ishgabangaloodoo (one of the few planets the Tatians did not control). One day, Lord Jimenez came home with a wyvern egg he had won in a bet. The wyvern hatched from the egg within a month and was named Freezerburn by Lord Jimenez. Jack began to care for the wyvern even more than his father, who by this point had begun to fall into depression as a result of being away from his home planet for so long. By this time, Jack was entering his teenage years, and he was beginning to become very annoyed with his parents' overprotective parenting. His father was extremely anti-Tatian, but since Jack was too young to fully remember the brutality he suffered while kidnapped by them, Jack began to develop pro-Tatian sympathies just for the sake of rebelling against his overbearing parents. However, before Jack could run away and join the Tatians, Lord Jimenez joined the Aurean Alliance, a group of anti-Tatian rebels who had recently taken control of Planet Squid and a few other planets. Now that the Tatians were gone, Lord Jimenez, Freezerburn, Alyx, and Jack returned to their home planet. When Jack arrived, he was able to see firsthand the damage that Tatian occupation had inflicted on his home planet, which caused him to see the error in the Tatian ways, apologize to his parents, and return to anti-Tatianism. A little over a decade later, Weasel came out of exile, allowing the Aurean Alliance to retake Aurea and reorganize the Aurean Alliance into the Aurean-Ishga Empire to continue the war against Tate. Lord Jimenez, seeking to serve his people in any way he could, joined a force of Aurean troops from Planet Squid called the Squidian Brigade. Jimenez led the Squidian Brigade on many successful missions, such as a hit-and-run attack on Loudoun and a flanking maneuver on Somerset. However, his mission with Weasel's army on Olympia failed and the Squidian Brigade's mission on Atlantea went even worse, with the entire Squidian Brigade being annihilated and Jimenez sacrificing his life for Planet Squid and the Aurean-Ishga Empire. Upon hearing of his father's death, Jack was devastated. He demanded that the body be returned to Planet Squid for a royal funeral, but because of the way Jimenez died, there WAS no body left to be buried. Jack was crowned the King of Planet Squid the next day, and he continued the policies of his father. He inherited Freezerburn as his own pet, and Freezerburn was now big enough to ride so he became Jack's loyal steed. His mother, Alyx, was his chief advisor. Since Jack was given a humble upbringing by his parents, he did not let power go to his head, and when a group of peasants revolted, demanding democracy, Jack agreed to share power with the Squidian Parliament, a new organization he created to settle this dispute. A few months later, the Aurean-Ishga Empire won its war against the Tatian Empire, and Jack was publicly thanked by Weasel and his friends for the troops and supplies Planet Squid provided to the war effort.
Leadership Traits