Axel Caine Bigarsky

As a Pyro, one would expect Axel Bigarsky to be a little more secretive of his identity. Most Pyros across Team Fortress Industries are marred and scarred, iding themselves for one reason or another. Not Axel. He has no shame in sharing his identity, and few expect the arsonist psychopath they see every day to be the charming and relaxed man he is under the asbestos suit.

Biography
One of the two people on his team with supernatural influence and power, literal pyromancer Axel Bigarsky always lived a bit of an unconventional life. He was born in New Jersey, but his parents were businesspeople and thereforehad to move around a lot. As a result, Axel became very used to not making friends as he would often have to leave just as he was getting comfortable with people, and he didn't want to go through the trouble of explaining why he was leaving.

He was 10 when his parents finally settled down in London for a supposedly permanent position there. Still, having learnt not to rely on people, Axel continued to be the eccentric loner. As his parents were always busy, he was often left to his own decives once he was old enough to not require constant supervision. This gave him a lot of freedom and he got to do a lot of things many others didn't, like stay out late, not come home after school, and his favourite - play with fire.

Axel was never lonely despite being alone. He had a golden retriever named Fuji to keep him company, and she was his best friend and company from the day he received her until the day she passed away. Fuji was a very clever dog and was always there for Axel, sometimes even walking herself to his school to meet him and walk home together.

A year after settling in London, his parents had to go on a business trip. Axel thought this meant packing up and leaving, but given that he was old enough to take care of himself, his parents said he could stay under the care of a family friend in London. His parents were due to return in two weeks, but they never made it as their flight back to London crashed, and they both died.

Axel never really went through any grief over it. As a loner, even from his parents, he was very used to not having people and sometimes he went weeks without seeing his parents at home because they came home by the time he was asleep, and gone to work before he woke up. As such, he only went through a period of confusion as to who was going to take care of the house. The state left his aunt in custody of him and the house, but she too ignored Axel most of the time.

Despite losing his parents and his aunt not caring, Axel wasn't short on care from adults. He had gotten a few friends who learned about his situation, and his friends's parents were kind people who always welcomed him into their houses and looked out for him.

As he got older, his obsession with fire grew and so did his recklessness and rebellion. He once set the curtains of his living room on fire though he did not mind as he was able to put it out. His studies remained average, just enough to pass without putting in any extra effort, but his principal, believing him to be rebellious and needing to be disciplined, tried to be forceful with him. That only resulted in Axel burning his textbooks and leaving the ashes at the principal's office.

He did graduate and kept his friends close. He started selling his parents's possesions he did not need nor want to keep which included most things and with the money, managed to get his driving license, and a car. When he was 21, he sold his parents's house and bought a smaller, cheaper apartment closer to his friends.

For the 4th of July, Axel had gone to America to celebrate with his friends who were having a gathering. Axel had gone to get more fireworks in a shed, but one of his friends accidentally let off a live firework into the shed, causing it to explode while he was still in it.

He spent the next two weeks in the hospital, of which a week and a half was in a coma. While in a coma, his soul made a deal with a fire spirit who needed the extra energy to merge and help Axel out of his coma, and he agreed. With the soul merge, he gained the ability to control fire.

With help from the merged soul he made a speedy recovery and was out of the hospital quickly and back to his normal life, but with the newfound ability to control fire. He trained to use it properly and with good control by using it in his daily life, be it cooking, lighting candles, lighting fireplaces, or more. His friends knew about this, but they were sworn to secrecy.

At 22, Axel met his first girlfriend, a woman named Christina Crawford. They were happy together for awhile, but after a year of dating, Christina became resentful as Axel liked hanging out with his friends and she didn't want to accept his invites to hang out too, so they didn't see each other that often. In a bout of anger, Christina broke up with Axel over text and ran off with his dog Fuji.

Furious with Christina for stealing his dog, he hunted her down and set her home on fire, effectively making him an arsonist, and rescued Fuji back. He didn't kill Christina or anyone in the house as he made sure they had gone out before he set the house on fire, but he was a criminal now and kept on moving to keep the cops off.

He moved around a lot and used a lot of forged documents, false identities, threats, and acts of violence to keep the cops of his back and managed to successfully keep them away for over six months. His act that bought him the most time was when he was surrounded in the empty highways of Nevada on all sides. In order to escape, he created a massive explosion that shook authorities everywhere when his supernatural power was made known. The authorities at the site who were kept alive were forced to let Axel go lest he burn them alive too. This forced the authorities to lie low for two months to strategize and regroup.

He was finally arrested in Las Vegas seven months after he burned his ex's house down in a casino and placed in a high security prison while preparing for transport. Tired and exhausted from months of constant running, he didn't fight back initially and was shifted from one prison to another. He spent two weeks in prison, defeated, and this led to a depressed, furious spell.

One full moon night, he was extremely frustrated with himself and his situation. This led to the fire spirit awakening, gaining power from Axel's anger and from the full moon. With his body unable to contain the amount of power and energy, he transformed into a monster. He sprouted wings and horns, and his eyes turned red and orange. The guard who came to check on him entered his cell, giving Axel the perfect time to strike. When controlled by the fire spirit, he knew no mercy and killed the guard viciously.

Axel managed to break out and rampaged the prison, killing any guard who dared to stand in his way before escaping through the courtyard. He flew until he was in the middle of nowhere, and just waited for something to change. Reports of him got out and became a global issue.

The reports got Mann Co. secretary Miss Pauling interested. A arsonist with supernatural pyrokinesis powers? She sought him out and found him back in London, and offered to clear his criminal records and make him a free man if he took on her job offer with Mann Co.

Needing his records cleared, Axel agreed, and became the RED Pyro of Mountainlab.

Pyrokinesis
Axel gained the ability to create and control fire (pyrokinesis) by agreeing to a soul merge with a fire spirit trapped in limbo. The agreement allowed Axel to wake up from his coma and heal completely. The soul merge also makes him immune to direct fire damage - he cannot be burned by touching fire or hot surfaces, but he can still suffer the consequences of exposure to flames, such as smoke inhalation or asphyxiation.

Personality
Axel can come off as untrusting to start with, especially when it comes to people he doesn't know that well yet. This is usually the case with new teammates, as he still retains the personality trait of not needing to be around people or make friends that much. However, once people get to know him, he's an entirely different person.

Axel is two very different people when on and off duty. While on duty and in his Pyro mask and suit, he is a psychopath with little guilt or remorse for literally burning people alive. He is relentless when hunting down his next unfortunate victim and can hardly be stopped by anyone, including his own team. However, he is a completely different person of duty - out of the suit, he is relaxed and sociable, like any other man in his prime would be.