Let's go back to when it all started.
Was it 10 years ago? No, it was a bit farther back, about 35 years ago, in the year 1885.
Asael Jobbs was born in a small town in America to two loving parents. His Ma worked at the local news press, and whenever she came home, she smelled of freshly printed paper. His Pa worked in the coal mines. He called it honest work, even though being a Black man in a place where he was not wanted made the work harder than it needed to be. Still, Pa was a joyful man.
Asael was born with dwarfism.
His Ma had always told him that his name, Asael, meant "Made by God." She would tell him that he had a heart so big that God had to cut off some of the other parts just to make room for it.
His Pa would say, "You were created as you were meant to be, ain't nothing called a defect."
They loved their son dearly.
Unfortunately, the world outside their little home was not nearly as kind.
Asael was bullied by the white boys in town, especially one boy named Edward, who always wore his blonde hair slicked back. Edward liked to remind Asael that he was Black and different, and the other boys were always happy to join him.
His Ma preferred that he call himself African American. She told him that his ancestors had chosen to settle here after slavery, and that there was nothing wrong with knowing where he came from.
Asael did not always understand why people had such a problem with him.
He was just Asael.
He was small, but he had a big heart.
And according to his Pa, that was all that mattered.
Then, in 1909, Asael's world changed.
His Pa died in a mining accident.
His Ma had always told him to rest his aging back, but Pa had insisted that the work was honest work and that he could handle it. One day, Ma received the news while she was at the press preparing the day's paper. The same place where she had spent years printing the news of other people's tragedies now had one of its own waiting for her.
Asael lost his father.
For a while, everything felt different.
He stopped boxing and started looking for work. Eventually, he found a job at a gun-making factory.
The work was not easy. The dust from the factory was bad for the lungs, and the machines were made for men much bigger than Asael. But he learned quickly. He learned how to assemble and disassemble the barrels, and despite his short hands, he became faster than most of the other workers.
Then the war came.
The factory's work became more important as the demand for weapons increased, but eventually the supplies were diverted elsewhere. The factory closed, and Asael found himself with nowhere to work.
So he went to the frontlines.
If he could no longer make guns in the factory, then he would make sure the guns were being used where they were needed.
That was how Asael Jobbs, a young Black man from a small town, found himself in the middle of the Great War.
And that was where the story of the Blood Angel truly began.