Xander Eisenzahn

Xander Eisenzahn (クサンダー アイセンザン, Zanda Aisenzan) is a fictional character in the Vendetta series. Xander first appears in Chapter #XX Four Ever After? in the Vendetta manga, published in Thunderverse Magazine on June 11, 201X, as a brief cameo appearance in the end.

Xander is the only Earth human-dinosaur hybrid existed in the said series's world, who can morph parts of his body with metallic-like matter. He's a recurring character (if not central) and an arch-rival of one of the series' protagonists, Randy Havoc. Xander's character has been well received due to filling the lone antihero archetype who's frequently involved in events with Nicky and company.

Appearance
Xander is depicted as an Caucasian young adult male with medium shaggy dark bluish-grey comb forward emo mullet. He has dark red eyes, sharp teeth, a silver gray tail with dark gray stripes that marks all the way up to the back of his neck, and a light muscular tone of his body shape.

Xander is usually seen wearing a red-orange sleeveless jacket with black trimmings, a collar, black pants with white chaps, and black shoes. He also has bandages wrapped around his waist and arms for reasons unknown, though he once mentioned that it adds layer of visual toughness as the way he sees it.

Whenever he's in his beast form, he appears in as a Tyrannosaurus Rex with the same color scheme of his tail at his entire body and having the stripes marked on his back up to his cranium area. His T-Rex form depicts as most other dinosaurs in media back when they're usually seen in their amphibious form before scientific theories of them having feathers in early 2000s. In addition, he grew two pairs of long blades as his claws for an advantage of the small length of his arms. He has another steel blade that sticks on the end of his tail.

Development
In midway of publishing The Black Ice Arc in the manga, Vendetta's creator, Berude Tamahoshi have been in discussion with her staff partners about adding an rival/antihero as inspired from the likes of Vegeta from Dragon Ball and Sesshomaru from Inuyasha. Originally, Tamahoshi had no intention to create such archetype, feeling that it would make her create another prominent DraGod character when she felt the series had enough of them.

It is also noted that Randy was originally intended to be an arch-rival to the series' main protagonist, Nicky Vendetta, but Tamahoshi later changed that idea into him being Nicky's simultaneous love interest along with Tatsu Seiryuu, as she wanted to express her support on polyamory relationships. After the creation of Randy, Tamahoshi felt that Nicky doesn't need an arch-rival as she made too many enemies of her own, especially her half-siblings and Natasha.

During the discussion with her staff partners, co-writer of the Rise of the Dragods anime series, Saburo Norikawa, suggested a way around to fill in the antihero/rival archetype; make a character that's similar to dragons and has a grudge with one of Nicky's fellows, in which Tamahoshi fairly agree. To create Xander, she chose dinosaurs for his physical traits, specifically a Tyrannosaurus Rex since some can consider that they are the closest to represent the mythos of dragons in real life and that she's a big fan of the 1993 film, Jurassic Park. She also inspired Xander's design and personality from Iori Yagami of The King of Fighters franchise, in which that he is her favorite character, despite that she played the games a very few times. She's also very intrigued of the rivalry between Iori and KOF's protagonist, Kyo Kusanagi, which motivates her to choose Randy as his rival as she had notice that Randy coincidentally shared similar traits to said rival.

The Eisenzahn Lineage
Xander is the unaware heir of the Eisenzahn lineage, the royal rulers of an endangered race known as "Dinos" The Dinos are evolved descendants of the remaining dinosaurs that survived from the Great Extinction, which it was the purge from the ancestors of the DraGod race by order due to their inferior IQ, fearing they would meddle with the laws of nature. One of the survived dinosaurs, Eisenzahn, Xander's earliest ancestor, eventually gained intelligence first before any of the other survivors, and take leadership to his endangered race. While the surviving dinosaurs gradually adapt and evolve to civility and gaining near immortality within generations, Eisenzahn passed his royal lineage to Igneous, then King Alastor, and lastly, King Alastor II, the father of Xander.

Childhood
Xander is born to Alastor II and a female Earth human named Lydia. He never met his parents since both died in different ways; Alastor II sacrificed his life to break a large meteor that headed to Gaia, his last residential planet, and Lydia died in giving birth to Xander in Earth. Without even having his parents, Xander had a miserable childhood, even more so than Randy and Nicky's, which they at least raised by their own human mothers. After his birth, he was unknowingly being taken to a rundown orphanage and being raised there. Due to his scaly tail and being among the humans within, he was being mistreated by the caregivers, which they gave him less portions of food and made him sleep in a dirty cot without blankets. Sadly, even the other orphans were being mean to him, by calling him names, pulling and twisting his tail, and tripping him. There was no one that were interested to adopt him. Ultimately within 7 years after his birth, Xander cannot take anymore of the abuse and ran off the orphanage, in desperation to find someone to aid him. He wandered in places being scared and lonely, constantly crying as no one even bothered parenting him. Like the aforementioned two Dragod heroes' childhoods, Xander was often ignored or harassed by society as they didn't understand of his scaly tail that sticks out behind him, which it's a most likely reason he developed an aggressive attitude when growing up.

Adolescence
During his aging process, he learned to adapt through the environments and heightens his anger to attack and kill anything that provokes him like how an teenage Tyrannosaurus would. It's also suggested that he grew frustrated when knowing that he can't die, which makes it impossible for him to put himself out of misery when he wished to, as evidenced from constant wolves, bears, and other predatory animal attacks. In which case, one day when entering his teenage phase, Xander was found by a pack of wolves, and was under attack, until he suddenly snapped and killed the alpha male. The wolves saw his vicious prowess and offered him to join their pack, and became their new alpha male. He later discovered that he can morph his limbs and his tail into near-impenetrable metallic matter in any form. He take his powers to his advantage and taught himself to fight with violent mannerisms, whether as self-defense or a necessity of force. Later, after leaving the wolf pack, he went off to wander like a lone wolf, only sooner to hear legends of his race, the DraGods, and the Great Extinction through passing by people's conversations and stories. When hearing about the ancestors of the DraGod race purging the dinosaurs, Xander instinctively detest dragons and DraGods, assuming that they may be the cause of lack of an appropriate society where he should have belonged.

Rivalry
During the 17th century, Xander visited Scandinavia for no specific reason, other than likely wandering on his own without a care. However, he have heard a fighting arena tournament called "Ragnarok" and decided to participate out of boredom. He met his destined rival, Randy Havoc in the tournament and both are able to fight each other in the finals. Xander had the upper hand throughout the whole fight, but Randy persevered at the last minute and lost. Xander didn't take his loss well as he felt his defeat to a DraGod is an insult to his pride of his ancestral race. He later had a rematch with Randy days after the tournament and lost again. He became obsessive with Randy after losing a few more rematches, which it reach to the point that he wants to kill him. Despite his best efforts through rigorous training, he never had his satisfying victory, although the closest point to when he would've actually won was one match that Randy's first love interest, Lumi Primm, had intervened after sucessfully injured Randy without breaking a sweat. At that time, Xander walked away out of pity that Randy had Lumi to shield him, taking it as a pathetic insult. Once after Randy disappeared to his cryogenic slumber, Xander tirelessly search everywhere in the world as he desired another rematch for the next 400 years.

Natasha Arc
In the Present, sometime before Nicky and Tatsu first met Randy, Xander almost came to the point of giving up looking for his rival, until he heard through resources that had sightings of DraGods in a continent far from where he was at, though it is unclear if the sightings specifically refers to Randy. Nonetheless, Xander travels all the way to that continent by feet and boarding on ships through the oceans, hoping to find his rival, at long last. In the time after Randy, Nicky, Tatsu, and Roxie get engaged with (almost) all of each other, Xander finally arrived in the continent where they lived. It wasn't long until he finally meet up with Randy and get his first rematch since the last 400 years, and have lost again.

Battle for Earth Arc
[WIP]

Celestial Universe Arc
[WIP]

Naraka Arc
[WIP]

Forsaken Arc
[WIP]

Titania Arc
[WIP]

King of Hell Arc
[WIP]

Lein Magnus Arc
[WIP]

Personality
Xander is a serious, blunt and rude character. He's very prone to anger in a violent behavior, which infuriating him would be one's death wish. Unlike Nicky, who's also aggressive but would never hurt anyone who isn't evil, Xander wouldn't hesitate to kill anyone who dare to provoke him on purpose, no matter if an innocent soul or a pure sinner. It's implied that he became a violent anti-social individual due to being an orphan and the amount of neglect society has given him in his childhood, plus for the fact that he has near-immortality which actually frustrates himself, he can't be able to escape his miserable life.

Although that Xander is considerably dangerous and prefers to be alone, he's not really a threat to humanity on Earth as he could care less what would happen to them, even by any major threats like Zeus. That kind of selfish act is more of a repayment on what society had done to him growing up. It is more evident that Xander meddles in with some of Nicky and her fellows battles against evil for his own selfish reason, most notably that he obligates to keep Randy alive, insisting that only he will defeat Randy.

Xander's dislike of dragons can easily imply that he has pride for his own race. It's most likely reason his hatred towards Randy is based on his constant losses from him, which he took them as insults, reflecting the Great Extinction. He has a mentality of proving that he can defeat a DraGod for the glory and revenge for his ancestral race, although that he mainly targets Randy for that aspiration, since he showed no interest to fight any of Randy's fellow dragod companions. Despite his pride of his Dino race, he would not likely to follow his late father's footstep of being a ruler to his endangered race if he had heard about his parents. It's probably because either of no knowledge of his parents' lifestyle or he's thinks ruling an empire is too much work for his interest.

Xander is not completely heartless, however, since he actually get decently acquainted with very few people for specific reasons, including Roxie and Velnias. Near the end of the Zhun Arc, he mentioned that there are fewest lives that are worth for him to defend the universe, which he decided to join Nicky and company on their quest to find the Four Celestial Gods (along with ensuring Randy's survival). It's seem that people who actually understand of his resentment can likely earn his tolerance. He can also sympathize on any people who had a miserable childhood with neglectful or lack of parents like his own.

In his introduction, in contrast to the main heroes' polyamorous love for each other, Xander was aromantic, as that he was never interested on looking for a significant other. He stated that romance is for the weak and a waste of time, which it implies that he didn't want to cope a relationship that would require to give so much attention to the mate that would meddle his lifestyle. Despite that, he's not asexual since that he taken a few opportunities to have sex, either by getting his sexual tensions out of the way or out of boredom. Its also very noticeable that most women finds Xander very attractive which they normally look past of his brooding personality. Few tried to get intimate with him at any given-second. Though, he occasionally preferred to be left alone since the act of those enamored women would rather annoy him (which ironically that they're not worth for him to attack).

Later in the series, Xander gradually shifts to be greyromantic since after getting well-acquainted with Velnias, but like his alleged bisexuality, he find a little difficult to return his affections. That is until after the events of the Celestial Universe arc, Xander grew even closer to Velnias than ever before. He finally admitted his true feelings for her during/after the Forsaken arc, where he even uttered the phrase in front of Velnias that he never said before, "I Love You."

There are subtle hints that Xander is actually a closeted bisexual, since that he quietly mentions of his fewer past sex might've included males, though he's probably too stubborn to admit it, feeling that it weakens his tough exterior. He also have a soft spot towards some sentient animals that are pet-like, with Riggie for example.

Powers and Abilities

 * -|Abilities=

Physical Abilities

 * Superhuman Strength -
 * Superhuman Speed -
 * Stamina -

Special Abilities

 * Ferrokinesis - Xander possesses the ability to change his limbs into metallic objects, often as weapons like blades, brass knuckles, and spikes. When in his primal form, his ferrokinetic ability increases more possibilities that his base form were not able to, such as externally deposit metallic objects out of his body like throwing knives and round shots, and form chainsaws on his limbs
 * Steel Coating - Xander can coat his skin with metallic lacing. He primarily uses them as shields for extra defense. His steel coating is very resilient than normal steel or titanium, which makes it nearly impossible to cut Xander through. However, he is limited to use this ability, as it doubles the exertion of his energy (i.e. if he coats his entire body, it will consume 50% of his energy, which he rarely does so as he rather not take that risk unless if forced to).
 * Feral Senses -
 * Locomotion Jump -
 * Immortality -


 * -|Techniques=

Metal-Based Techniques

 * Hand Blade - 
 * Mace Tail - 


 * -|Forms and Transformations=

Forms and Transformations

 * Tyrannosaurus Rex Form -
 * Cursed Form -
 * Primal Form -

Relationships

 * Randy Havoc - Randy and Xander are the fiercest rivals with each other. Originally, Xander despised Randy with a passion. Since after the Ragnarok Tournament back at the 17th century, Xander constantly loses his fights to Randy, which it justifies his hatred towards the Ice Dragod. He grew obsessive with Randy right to the point that he desired to kill him. Randy, on the other hand, while shared mutual hatred with Xander, he is hardly spurred of Xander's reasoning and the Great Extinction conspiracy. Randy even showned to be exhausted of this whole rivalry since the beginning, as it noted that he was in so much relief since after his reawakening from his period of suspended animation, up until Xander found him again after when all four dragods proposed to each other. Xander also felt the need to defeat Randy on his own that he won't allow anyone else to kill him, which he's usually obligated to meddle in the fights with Nicky and company. When they join forces, it is often begrudgingly and as a last resort solution to the conflict at hand. However, in the Celestial Universe arc, Xander decided to form a truce with Randy for a year, for the sake of Velnias. Though, he mentions that he will get stronger and will fight Randy again by the time the truce is over. Once after their truce ended, Xander was in near success of killing Randy in their fight, but has been hesitated after witnessing Velnias being punched in the gut by Nicky out of desperation, realizing that he has badly influenced the cambion that led her to attack the others without his awareness. He later realized that all of his unbridled hatred on Randy would lead himself to self-destruction and given his heart to Lein Magnus, which he has given up the thought of killing him. Shortly after, Xander's change of heart and his extreme grudge against Randy became a friendly rivalry, though Xander still would rather not be "chummy chums" with the Ice dragod, and just call themselves as mutual acquaintances with some intolerance.
 * Velnias - Velnias is one of the fewest people that Xander enjoys company with. Since they first meet in the woods with her fellow female demons, Adeline Coon and Fatima, Vel is helplessly attracted to his appearance. At the same night, Xander took her virginity, which ended up having Vel to fell in love with him, to the point that she's obsessed with him. Despite that, Vel still get very shy towards his mere presence. While that Xander was aromantic, his impressions towards Velnias was a different change of pace since the majority of women he encountered are usually straight-up attracted to him. Vel instead, takes her approach of her affections slowly, which it worked favorably for Xander. It could also be for the fact that Vel had a miserable childhood of her own, which Xander can relate to and sympathizes with her. Regardless of Vel's affections she wholeheartedly give, Xander didn't seem to return them to her. It was probably because of his brooding and stubborn personality held him back to display any romantic gestures, though he's likely to shift into being greyromantic as it seems later on in the series. Despite his abrasiveness, Xander showed much concern towards Vel, and would assure to maintain her happiness. It is later proved that he often fought alongside the four dragod heroes for the sake of Velnias, and have admitted that he is indeed enamored with the young cambion. His admittance occurred at the same time when Velnias revealed that she's pregnant. They had a conflicted moment as they take their time away from each other, not knowing what to do about bearing a child. That is until Xander ultimately decided for Vel to keep and gave birth to their dino-demon-human hybrid child, Xavier.
 * Nicky Vendetta - While that Xander harbored hatred towards Randy, his impressions towards the main protagonist of the series wasn't any better. Originally, Xander wanted no business with Nicky. However, knowing how much tedium Xander gave to one of her engaged lovers over decades, Nicky was usually displeased of his presence. She also get annoyed when she sees or knows of Randy and Xander's fights, saying that it's not healthy for either to continue the rivalry that's been going on for years. Xander sooner found Nicky almost as aggravating as Randy, with her meddling in his rivalries and her taunts towards him. Although, it's implied that Nicky don't really hate Xander, since she noticed that Xander does display some form of humanities, such as his soft spot towards Riggie and his care for Velnias. Along with that, Nicky might've find Xander as attractive as Randy and Tatsu, though she's rather reluctant on that fact for her stance and her loyalty to her two male fiancés. Eventually, their displeasure towards each other has mellowed, and they each gained a newfound respect.


 * Roxie Estrella - Of all the DraGods that Xander have to indulge, Roxie is surprisingly the one who he tolerates the most. Xander would've easily find Roxie obnoxious to deal with as she is the most childish of the four heroes, but Roxie's compassion and understanding of his personal grief actually caught himself in awe, as she's one of the fewest people who sympathizes with him. Roxie knew that Xander isn't a complete heartless individual, which she has seen some of his gray areas. It is a possibility that due to Roxie herself actually being part Dino from her mother's heritage, they seems to share a mutual acquaintanceship through their ancestral instincts. Although Xander do get a bit annoyed from her (especially when being referred to as "Xandy"), the amount of compassion Roxie delivered seem to heightens his tolerance towards her. Strangely, Roxie playfully flirts with and supports Xander at times, though she does not intend to be fully amorous with Xander, knowing that either Randy or Nicky wouldn't approve that. Nevertheless, Roxie always enjoys Xander's company and maybe a reliable source to keep Xander to be less hostile towards her fellows.
 * Tatsu Seiryuu - Similar to Roxie, Tatsu don't hate or even remotely dislike Xander. While Tatsu don't agree of Xander's ideology filled with grim and aggression, as it is a direct contrast to his own with optimism and kindness, he showed no resentment to Xander as a whole person, unlike Randy and Nicky does. Probably because of his forgivable attitude, Tatsu have seen that Xander isn't completely black and white of his characteristics, giving him a thought that he don't need to be enemies with, despite of Xander's hatred towards Randy. While they don't interact each other as much as the other Dragods did, Xander apparently tolerated Tatsu almost as he did with Roxie. In fact, in the Zhun Arc, there is one genuine scene where both characters interacted in a good length; Xander surprisingly acknowledged Tatsu's confusion with his feelings towards his lost father, Azure Seiryuu, and decided to have a conversation with him, sharing his ambiguity with his parents he never knew. After that moment, Tatsu grew to be more friendly to Xander, which he had to hug him as first sign to it. Xander's fair tolerance to Tatsu may be implied that he's secretly attracted to him, referring back to his closeted bisexuality as his constant light blushes towards Tatsu may have hinted it.
 * Draco Estrella - [Work in Progress]
 * Zhun Suzaku -
 * Zeus -

Trivia

 * It's obvious that the design and personality is heavily inspired from fan-favorite character of The King of Fighters franchise, Iori Yagami. They share similar hairstyle, brooding and violent personality, and often fights and obligates to team-up with their own rival that are also similar. In addition, [the choice of] Xander's Japanese voice actor is Iori's former voice actor, Kunihiko Yasui.
 * The major difference is that while Iori stays in a one-track mind to kill his rival, Kyo Kusanagi, with his bare hands throughout most of the entire KOF series, Xander eventually dropped his intent to kill Randy after nearly succeeding doing so since in the beginning of the Naraka arc. He became non-lethal rivals with Randy afterwards, while retaining some disagreements.
 * Even though reasons has already given for Xander's disliking Nicky and despising Randy while he tolerates Roxie and Tatsu, some theorized that Xander's utter contempt of Randy and Nicky is due to relating the possible cause of the dinosaurs' extinction in real life; some believed that it was burning meteors from the skies or volcanoes that perished them, which represents Nicky's fire, while others think it was the Ice Age that freezes them to death, which represents Randy's ice.
 * The particular choice of Xander's dinosaur scale colors and his metallic morphing powers may be inspired from some T-Rex associated with metal that were portrayed in fictional media;
 * One of the famous examples can be Grimlock from the Transformers franchise. Grimlock is usually portray as an Autobot that can transform into a robotic Tyrannosaurus.
 * Another fine examples are that in the Power Rangers/Super Sentai franchise, the color-coded squadron of superheroes usually summons giant interchangeable robot animals in some of their seasons. Most notably in Sentai's 16th season, Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger, later to be famously adapted as Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in the USA, which their motif of the squadron is prehistoric beasts-themed. Particularly, the TyannoRanger/Red Ranger pilots Guardian Beast Tyrannosaurus/Tyrannosaurus Dinozord.
 * Later, subsequent seasons after Zyuranger/MMPR would contain mechas/zords in a form of T-Rex, such as the V-Rex/Quantasaurus Rex from Mirai Sentai Timeranger/Power Rangers Time Force, the Bakuryuu Tyrannosaurus/Tyrannozord from Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger/Power Rangers Dino Thunder, the GoZyuJin/Q-Rex Zord from Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger/Power Rangers Super Megaforce, and the Zyudenryu Gabutyra/T-Rex Zord from Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger/Power Rangers Dino Charge.
 * In the 2012 hack-n-slash video game, Ninja Gaiden 3, one of the bosses featured in the game is a T-Rex. When in critical health, the T-Rex coat its body with steel.
 * Some live demolition events features a 48-feet semi-trailer that can transform into a 40-feet mechanical T-Rex, famously known as Robosaurus.