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ohmyarceus2022-04-19 07:33 pm
lightningbearer) wrote in ohmyarceus2022-04-19 07:33 pm
Let's talk Tragic Backstories!
Welcome to the Tragic Backstories™ meme!
Step 1. Post your character(s)!
Step 2. Explain your character's horrific, tragic backstory in as much lush and lurid detail as you can manage!*
Step 3. Read everyone else's posts and be appropriately horrified!
*Please be sensible and note if there's likely to be particularly disturbing imagery, and likewise keep in mind when reading that these are tragic backstories for a reason
OPTIONAL: Use this handy-dandy code to white out spoilers and/or any particularly gnarly bits:
Sion Astal | The Legend of the Legendary Heroes
Seriously I don't think I can even make a comprehensive list here since there's so much wrong, I'd probably forget something. Just be warned that yes, it really is that horrible!
Anyway!
*deep breath*
To start it off, Sion's mother was a commoner who was kidnapped and raped by the king, who then discarded her after she became pregnant. Sion as a child knew about this and while his mother was always adamant that she loved him, he still tended to blame himself for her suffering. Sion himself was treated pretty poorly, too, his royal half-brothers and their lackeys calling him names, harassing him, and beating him up for the fun of it when he was a young child. Even at that young age Sion realized that if he fought back, resisted, or even seemed to be in any way willful/defiant, the situation would from being harassed and beaten up to being seen as a threat and killed, so even when he felt confident he was strong enough to take his tormentors in a fight he still just kept quiet and let them do what they wanted.
His mother as mentioned before was similarly harassed, called names like "low born dog" (Sion was "son of a low born dog") and generally made miserable. When Sion was still pretty young it eventually became too much for her to deal with and she killed herself, still to the end reassuring Sion that she loved him and that he didn't have to worry about being alone because he's a kind person who'd always find himself surrounded by people who love him. This was so traumatic for Sion that in all his recountings and recollections of his mother's death he has never acknowledged it was by her own hand, instead placing the blame on his brothers for "killing" her via their torment.
Oh, and after his mother died Sion found a present left for him from one of his brothers: a dead dog with a note saying that it was appropriate company for a lowborn dog like his mother in the afterlife.
A few years after that, Sion fell in love for the first time. The girl was just a commoner, no one of note, but he didn't care. He loved her and even went so far as thinking that maybe he'd give up on his plans to overthrow his father and fix Roland, if settling down somewhere in the country and having a family instead was an option. It turned out it wasn't, however, because once his brothers found out, one of them had the girl killed, apparently just because Sion wasn't allowed to be happy or have nice things.
A few years after that, Sion was enrolled in the Royal Special Military Academy. Which despite the fancy name was basically just a school to train orphans and children of criminals--undesirables, basically--to wage war in the stead of nobles. So that the nobles' kids could continue living cushy, safe lives while the commoners fought and died in their place. Between his looks, his academic skill, his presumed noble heritage, and general charisma, Sion was wildly popular with (almost) all his fellow students. He frequently was approached by girls confessing their love to him, even, though he always gently but firmly turned them down, not wishing to have a repeat of the last time. He learned of a student by the name of Ryner Lute who also was an Alpha Stigma bearer and decided he was going to befriend him, even if he had to resort to blackmail.
Oh, and somewhere in here he started having to deal with actual assassination attempts, requiring him to run and/or fight for his life. In one case he only survived due to choosing to trust a mysterious blond swordswoman he happened to cross paths with; she protected him, then demanded dango in repayment, and thus began Sion's dealings with the powerful but mysterious Eris family. More on that to come!
Any all was more or less fine and dandy at the academy until war broke out between Roland and Estabul (again) and guess who all is being sent out to the front? Sion pulls some strings to get himself and his classmates assigned to someplace relatively safe in the back of the lines... Only for it to turn out one of his brothers anticipated this and, via a double-agent spy, effectively sicced a bunch of Estabul's elite magic knights on the group. It was a slaughter. Soon the only people left standing were Sion, Ryner, and Kiefer (said double-agent spy and friend of theirs), with the magic knights apparently planning to have some fun with torturing and killing them. Except then Ryner's alpha stigma flipped out, he slaughtered the magic knights instead, and almost killed Sion and Kiefer before they managed to stop him.
In the aftermath Sion wound up praised as a 'hero' for allegedly being responsible for killing Estabul's elite forces, while Ryner was labeled a dangerous monster and imprisoned. Sion tried to help Ryner escape, but his friend declined.
After this Sion gets much more seriously involved in plots to start a rebellion, masterminded by a man named Miller. Sion's perfectly fine with going along with these plans because whatever overthrows the king and fixes Roland is fine by him, and when he realizes Miller's plan basically calls for him to die to be the catalyst to start an uprising, Sion's perfectly okay with that. Up until he realizes that it won't actually work. So he goes to Lucile, mysterious head of the Eris family, instead, seeking power. After warning Sion about how horrible the fate that awaits him is, Lucile takes him into the depths of the dojo, a space filled with an oppressive presence that gets more powerful and more painful the further they progress. Turns out normally, anyone and everyone of royal blood is forced to be subjugated to this at around fifteen or sixteen years old; Sion was spared because someone else previously interfered with the Eris household. Sion manages to make it all the way to the end, where Lucile asks him one last time if he wants to go through with this. Sion does, and grasps the sword sticking out of the desiccated corpse in front of him, and through it receives the power of the god known as the Mad Hero. Oh, and agony. An intense, unending agony that feels vaguely like every single cell of his body is in pain. It never lessens and never goes away, even when he's sleeping.
But hey, he's got a god's power now, right?
The work for the rebellion continues, now with a slightly adjusted plan, Sion personally kills at least one of his brothers, and then against Lucile's advice decides to go confront the king personally. The king is entirely mad and doesn't even recognize Sion, despite Sion pretty much looking exactly like him. When Sion identifies himself as his son, however, the king flips out a little and goes on a crazy "then take this pain away from me!" rant and starts hitting Sion with more of the Mad Hero's power. It's very unpleasant for Sion. Sion does eventually manage to grab the brooch bearing Roland's crest from the king's robes and get out of there, but not without the king getting one last word of "won't you save me, my son?" before Sion leaves the room. He then meets up with more of Miller's forces, makes a speech and assists in some attacks on enemy nobles, and then suddenly learns that they've succeeded, the king is dead. Apparently when enough people switch loyalties to a different member of the royal family, eventually the Mad Hero then switches, too, abandoning his previous host in favor of the new one. Without that power the king's unnaturally long life caught up with him at once and he'd immediately died of old age. Which is to say Sion sort of indirectly killed his father.
Sion then proceeded to have to deal with nobles who still hated him (but now couldn't kill him) and trying to stop all the nasty things Roland had been up to. Like human experimentation and training children to be assassins. Except that he's also learning, along with the whole mad god trying to possess him thing, that there's a lot more fundamentally wrong with Roland and the rest of Menoris than he'd first realized. He manages to free Ryner from prison at least, so that's a bright spot, but then a commoner he befriended and who became his secretary is assassinated because guess what! Sion's enemies still don't like him having nice things!
The ensuing time involves going to war with Estabul again, restart some of those human experiments again in secret (albeit strictly only with volunteers this time), order a purge of the opposing faction of the nobility, and generally completely overworking himself constantly because it's one of the only ways he can kind of halfway distract himself from the horribly agony he's in. Ryner comes back to Roland, and then leaves AGAIN, this time running off with a murderous, magic- and man-eating cursed eye bearer, which Sion's more than a little broken up about. Then their friend Ferris brings him back, and the same noble who killed Sion's commoner friend sends an assassin after Ryner. The assassin fails, but Ryner's still injured, and Sion proceeds to grab the guy by the throat and threaten him with a knife. In the middle of a party. Before finally relenting. There might be some sanity slippage going on here too thanks to the Mad Hero possession and all. Not to mention someone else connected with the powers that be sees a young version of Sion crying in a dream... and when she approaches him, he tells her "I want to die." Which is pretty much how Sion's feeling at this point.
Oh, and periodically through all this, certain of Sion's subordinates are so determined that he needs to marry, or at least sire an heir, that they keep setting him up with random women whether he wants it or not. (He doesn't want it, for reasons varying from the trauma of his first love's death to not wanting to be anything like his father--who, as you might recall, apparently had a thing for grabbing random commoner girls and raping them.) Some of the women are very... enthusiastic and pushy about the matter. Sion manages to get out of it one way or another, but it's still a bit upsetting!
By now Sion's learned he has a problem: see, the Mad Hero isn't the only power in Roland, there's also the Lonesome Demon. In order to defeat the goddesses who oversee the world, he needs the power of both of them. But obtaining the Lonesome Demon's power would consign the Demon and his current host to eternal agony like what Sion's currently enduring... and the current host of that power? Ryner. After much internal debate Sion decides the best course of action for both his best friend and the world is to kill Ryner and cause the Demon to reincarnate. Ryner's spared a fate worse than death, and Sion only has to consign a stranger to that horrible fate, not his best friend.
He doesn't pull it off, needless to say, and instead tearfully ends up ordering Ryner locked up instead. Ferris breaks him out and this time Ryner leaves Roland for good, though not without leaving Sion a letter saying he WILL find a way to save him. Reading that letter makes Sion cry all over again.
Next comes war. This time with the northern neighbor, Nelpha. Sion's plan is to wage a total war campaign to promptly cow the country and its king into surrendering, thereby causing fewer casualties in the long wrong. Unfortunately the king was a GIANT COWARD and just fled, leaving Sion forced to continue his army's butchering march to the Nelphan capital, and making it so that the only responsible royal left (and thus who would need to be captured and killed to end the war) was a young man Sion had briefly met and befriended before. Meanwhile Ryner's off somehow getting thrust into a figurehead king position of a coalition opposing Sion, there's only ten years left before the world ends and cycle starts anew, and generally everything is a whole big mess.
And now he's been stuck in Johto for years! What fun!
Eri | My Hero Academia
Oh god, oh god oh fuck. Here we go.
I will AGAIN warn that everything about Eri's backstory is a spoiler for Season 4 of My Hero Academia, so like, if you care about that... don't read. Just know this adorable child is also a bundle of trauma.
Deep breath... here we go. Note that I have linked some images here just for the heck of it, and while they aren't necessary, they are still there. If they don't load, try to reload the page... wiki image links tend to be weird sometimes.
As many of you likely know by now, the world of My Hero Academia is a world in which the majority of the planet's population possesses a superpower of some kind... dubbed "quirks", and Eri is no exception to this. Though her grandfather was the head of the Shie Hassaikai, one of many Yakuza groups in Japan, Eri's mother and father presumably weren't really involved in that.
Her parents seemed to be, by all accounts, good parents. Eri lived happily while she was still a baby, a simple and normal life looking to be ahead of her. While she was growing, however, there was a small horn starting to grow out of the side of her forehead... which was ultimately brushed off as merely early signs of the child's incoming quirk.
Eri, however, turned out to be a rare case. The quirk she was born with did resemble any of the other registered quirks in her family. It was a rare, but not impossible occurrence... her quirk was a Mutation, and an ability that would be difficult to comprehend and understand.
Case and point, Eri's quirk eventually awakened, and when her father went to pick his daughter up... suddenly he was gone.
The only remains of Eri's father were a pile of his clothes, now on the floor in front of a very confused child. Eri's father was dead.
The sight filled Eri's mother with fear, and she began to scream about how Eri was a "cursed child" that had killed her husband. This would become a memory that would be etched into Eri's mind at the earliest possible age.
Eri was disowned by her mother, ending up in the care of her grandfather. Due to the mystery surrounding how Eri's father died and Eri's newfound quirk, her grandfather then placed her under the care of Kai Chisaki, who had also been taken in by Eri's grandfather when he was young, and was now an adult at the time. The reason for this was because based on the information received, Eri's grandfather assumed that Eri's quirk was similar to Chisaki's quirk: Overhaul. He believed that Chisaki would be able to find out what Eri's quirk was, as well as sympathize with the young girl.
However, this assumption was wrong. Eri's quirk had been assumed to be called "Vanish", as it had made Eri's father vanish into thin air... but this was not true. "Overhaul" could deconstruct and reconstruct objects that Chisaki touches with his hands, and Eri's quirk was nothing like that. Eri's quirk... was Rewind. Eri possesses the ability to reverse a living being's body back to a previous state, and the size of her horn signifies how much Rewind energy she has stored up. The incredibly dangerous part about this ability, however, is that Eri is too young to understand how to stop her power once it activates, and it is fully possible to rewind a living being to the point before they existed. In addition, due to the fact it only affects living creatures, it is dangerous and hard to train such a power.
Seeing the terrifying nature of this power, Chisaki saw an opportunity. After numerous experiments on Eri's power, he discovered that in addition to her Rewind ability, her blood also possessed properties that could suppress the bodies' ability to manifest the 'Quirk Factor' thus inhibiting the victim's quirk... albeit only temporarily.
Chisaki proposed his plan to Eri's grandfather, expecting praise... but the old man simply looked at Chisaki, horrified at what he was proposing they do to the little girl. Therefore, in order to continue with his plans unabated... Chisaki used his quirk to place Eri's grandfather into a coma, allowing him to take over the Shie Hassaikai.
Now that he was pulling the strings, experiments on Eri began in earnest... and Chisaki would utilize his quirk to create bullets that can be shot at a target to inject them with Eri's blood. This would prove to work successfully, temporarily inhibiting the quirks of anyone who is hit with the Quirk Inhibiting bullets. How did he create these bullets, however? As stated before, his quirk disassembles and reassembles whatever he touches...
You may be able to see where this is going.
Chisaki would use his quirk on Eri repeatedly, destroying the girl's body, collecting her blood, then repairing her. This was far from a painful or humane process, and it was done hundreds upon thousands of times during Eri's life. All of this was for the sake of perfecting the bullet... changing the temporary nature of the Quirk Erasure to a Permanent one. Quirk-Destroying bullets... an incredibly dangerous weapon.
While Eri attempted to escape and resist on numerous occasions, each attempt was ultimately to no avail, and would additionally tend to result in the ill fate of someone else... usually whoever was in charge of keeping her from escaping in the first place.
See, this is how Chisaki kept her under control. He knew full well of what Eri's mother did to her, and he took full advantage of it. It was repeated to Eri almost constantly, telling her again and again that she's a cursed child... that her 'selfish actions' would only bring others pain. Eri was a kind and gentle girl... she never wanted to hurt anybody, and mental scars began to set in just as quickly as the physical ones.
When Eri had a true opportunity to escape from him after running into Izuku Midoriya and Mirio Togata while the boys were on patrol, she had clung to Izuku desperately... however, the instant that Chisaki showed a slight bloodlust... the intent to kill, she went back to him... willing to return to that hell rather than risk others being hurt as a result of her 'selfishness'. True to this, upon returning to the Yakuza hideout, the man in charge of watching her was immediately killed by Chisaki in front of Eri.
...Fortunately, the tale of Eri's pain and misfortune ends here.
The patrol that the two heroes Eri bumped into were for the sake of finding Chisaki himself, and saving Eri just became a primary goal. Eri was tracked down, and though the fight was brutal and Mirio Togata was shot with a newly-perfected Quirk-Destroying bullet... Eri was saved, as she was able to finally grasp the hope and will to be saved, and Chisaki was defeated and placed into custody.
Though Eri was saved... the mental hold that Chisaki held over the young girl would not immediately go away... however, with a lot of work, Eri was able to smile again, the ghost of Kai "Overhaul" Chisaki banished from the girl.
Ultimately, this story has a happy ending. Eri is kept at U.A. under the supervision of the many U.A. teachers, particularly Shoto Aizawa, whose Erasure quirk could stop Eri's quirk in case she would lose control... allowing her to properly learn how to control her quirk herself. She's a cheerful, sweet, and precious girl... though some scars still remain, and will perhaps remain forever.
Still, at the very least, she's able to move past the horrific events of her past and move toward a bright life... and hey, that just so happens to be here in the World of Pokemon.
Narancia Ghirga | JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind
Narancia won't talk about his past much so it's up to me I guess.
Narancia was born in 1983 Italy to his father, an unnamed gardener, and his mother, Mela Ghirga. Unfortunately, things took a turn when Narancia was ten, when Mela died from an eye infection. This left him alone with his father, who was neglectful of his son and apparently didn't care what he did. Narancia soon dropped out of school to start spending more time with his friends, who he valued more than anything. He particularly trusted one older friend, and told that friend about his mother's death via eye infection among other things.
Unfortunately, those friends were not great friends. They would routinely steal food from restaurants and stores, and Narancia was right along with them. The friend he trusted most (who I'll call Asshole Friend) was the worst of the bunch, and one day Asshole Friend told Narancia to dye his hair blond so that they could look alike. Narancia, trusting him, did so. It turned out that Asshole Friend had broken into a woman's home and beaten up the woman who lived there, and faced with the risk of being sent to jail, decided to frame a then fourteen year old Narancia for the crime and let him take the blame.
The plan worked. Narancia was arrested for the break in and attack, and despite his protests that he hadn't done it, ended up being sent to juvie for a full year. To make matters worse, the guards apparently beat Narancia during his time in juvie, resulting in him developing an eye infection like the one that took his mother.
After Narancia got out of juvie at age fifteen, he tried to reunite with his friends, only to find that they were now avoiding him because they thought his eye infection was contagious. Why would they think that, you ask? Well, Asshole Friend, who was the only person Narancia had told about his mother's eye infection, had been spreading rumors based on what Narancia had told him, causing everyone to think the eye infection was contagious when they saw Narancia.
Alone, Narancia began to give up, thinking that the eye infection was going to kill him like his mother, and ended up on his own on the streets. Luckily, it's here that his life starts to turn around. While Narancia was scrounging through the trash for food, a teen named Pannacotta Fugo found him and took pity on him, deciding to bring him to the restaurant where he was meeting up with one Bruno Bucciarati. In turn, Bruno gave Narancia a meal and helped him get medical treatment for his eye infection, despite the fact that he did not have to help him. While in the hospital, Narancia figured out that Bruno was a gangster and asked to work for him, only for Bruno to angrily tell him to go home and return to school.
To his credit, Narancia did do this, though he was never able to trust his neglectful father and he was confused on why Bruno got so angry at him for asking. Six months later (and after realizing that the reason for Bruno's anger was because Bruno actually cared about his wellbeing), Narancia proceeded to go join the gang, a group called Passione, anyways, successfully passing the test needed to get in and gaining his Stand, a small RC sized plane called Aerosmith, in the process. He was assigned to Bruno's team after getting in.
JJBA plot spoilers below:
Unfortunately, at age seventeen, Narancia would be brutally killed at the hands of the boss of Passione, a man named Diavolo. Due to the fact that Diavolo used his time skipping ability in the process of killing him, Narancia didn't have the chance to fight back or even know what was happening. To add insult to injury, Narancia had been planning to finally go back to school before his death, something that he was sensitive about due to his lack of education.
Narancia's now in the Pokémon world, but he found himself in Team Rocket. Hopefully he can make a good life for himself here.
Geddoe | Suikoden III
Now, there's very little explicit canon information about Geddoe's early life, though there's a few bits and pieces to go on. But we don't know things like, say, what his childhood was like, what he originally did for a living, or even the name of his homeland! Not that the latter actually matters at this point, though, considering that it no longer exists.
You see, there's the whole thing with the True Runes and how everyone wants them for their power, and this is especially true of an empire known by the somewhat ironic name of Harmonia. Harmonia has a habit of attacking and conquering places that have or might have a True Rune, and Geddoe's homeland was one of these. Again, we don't know many specific details... but we do know that he basically lost everything he knew in or as a result of that conflict, that it was probably during/because of that that he ended up with the True Lightning Rune, and that another character refers to the place he received the rune as being a "cursed land" for Geddoe.
So in other words, he probably had a pretty average, unremarkable life for a good three and a half decades or so... only to suddenly find himself with the rune (and thus both wanted and immortal) and with everything and everyone he knew and loved up to that point destroyed by war. Oh, and if anyone did happen to live through it, it wouldn't matter much since Geddoe would have to hide his rune and would now outlive anyone he knew anyway.
That was 76 years ago.
We have absolutely zero information on the immediately following years, but most likely Geddoe probably spent that time wandering, keeping a low profile, and generally being in a funk. Even in the present time he refers to his immortality as "trapping" him in life, doubtless that knowledge felt especially frustrating back when those initial wounds were so fresh.
In any case though, about fifty years ago, somehow or another, he wound up getting caught up in the schemes of a young Grasslander man who would become known as the Flame Champion. The two became good friends, and along with a certain Wyatt Lightfellow with True Water and a bold theft of True Fire from Harmonia, what started as a band of bandits became something of an army fighting Harmonian occupation, with no fewer than three runebearers a part of it. However, war isn't particularly glorious at the best of times, and this one in particular ended in considerable tragedy: the Flame Champion lost control of True Fire (always a risk for a runebearer, as the True Runes have wills of their own) and the resulting explosion utterly decimated both the Grassland and the Harmonian armies. Geddoe managed to avoid getting caught in the blast, but seeing that kind of destruction first hand leaves an impression... especially considering he possesses another such True Rune, himself.
Oh, and the game doesn't tell us when he lost his right eye, but the manga adaptation (which... has its good points and its bad points) places it during this war, which seems as good an interpretation as any, so let's go with that! Especially for the delicious irony of being friends with the bearer of the True Water Rune (that is, healing magic) and still managing to sustain an injury it can't heal. Yep.
On the upside of the whole ramping True Fire debacle though, the incident convinced the Harmonians to agree to a ceasefire. On the downside, the Flame Champion made the decision to give up his own rune so that he could live and age with his lover, a choice that Geddoe took as something of a betrayal of his ideals (as well as being more than a little jealous) and was never quite able to forgive him for it. Said grudge, incidentally, outlived his friend by quite some time.
Geddoe parted ways with his friends and wandered off again... Only to a few decades later somehow wind up fighting in the Gate Rune War. Presumably as an ordinary soldier, but apparently either Geddoe has a knack for finding his way into conflicts, or conflict has a knack for finding him. Note that at this point he's been in some manner involved in at least three different wars that we know of!
Once more, we don't know what all he was up to for a while, but about eight years ago he joined up as a mercenary with the Harmonian Southern Frontier Defense Force. Apparently if you can't beat 'em, join 'em? Or at least take the steady paycheck that comes with it. Suffice to say he was involved in assorted flavors of mercenary work during this time (the only mission really mentioned is a failed attempt to start an uprising in a neighboring nation), enough to earn himself quite the impressive reputation in Caleria, where the mercenary force is headquartered.
Now this catches us up to recent events of the actual game! Some of the highlights for Geddoe include: going to meet with an old acquaintance (the chief of the Lizard Clan), only for that acquaintance to be assassinated shortly after. Meeting up with another old friend (Wyatt, now know as Jimba), only to have to make a hasty exist out of village when it comes under attack and gets burned to the ground. Chasing rumors and information from one end of Grassland to another, being confronted time and again with various pieces of his past both good (helping establish Budehuc Castle as a free trade zone) and bad (dropping by the Harmonian-occupied village of Le Buque, formerly a Grassland village that Geddoe and the others had failed to save). Getting involved in various skirmishes, possibly disobeying (or outright defying) his employer, and generally frantically trying to get ahead of whatever nasty plot is brewing. Then finally having to confront his feelings about his old friend as the True Fire Rune is inherited by a new bearer.
Did you think we were done? We're not!
Geddoe then wound up involved in a series of losing battles before the combined Grassland and Zexen forces managed to regroup. An effort to protect the True Water Rune sees Geddoe's old friend Wyatt die, leaving oh, basically one person left alive who's known him for more than a decade or two. Then there was the whole investigating trouble in Le Buque that ended with True Lightning being forcefully--and very painfully--stolen from him.
Then of course they finally manage to turn things around, they get all the runes back, save the day, etc. Geddoe's still left feeling pretty unsure where he wants to go with things and what to do about the rune, though. You just don't get over those feelings of losing literally everything so easily!
Radley | Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds
Radley is one of two gangs trying to claim control of a small mining town. Each night, both put up a fighter and the two play the Duel Monsters card game. The loser goes to work for the boss of the winner. Unlike his rival Malcolm, Radley and his gang are never shown to torture the miners. In the Japanese, Radley's name is Ramon, which means Protector. Indeed, he and his gang are the only ones standing in the way of a totalitarian takeover, which we see happen when Malcolm gains control. The town becomes far, far worse then.
In both versions of the anime (and in the Over the Nexus game), Radley can be philosophical. He seems well-educated and definitely not a standard biker punk.
Radley tries to be friendly to his top Duelist, Kalin Kessler, but is rebuffed. Despite annoyance and hurt at Kalin, Radley stays calm, cool, and collected until they and Yusei Fudo are all dragged off to Malcolm's part of the mine after Yusei is humiliated and betrayed and Radley is humiliated and defeated in what amounts to a mock duel in which he could not even get off one move. Radley shakes in fear and finally snaps, screaming at Kalin that it's his fault they're all stranded for the rest of their lives. In Malcolm's mine, prisoners are repeatedly shocked by electrically-charged collars and whipped. Radley is dragged off by a sadistic guard and we have no way of knowing his fate in the anime. Yusei and Kalin, when they escape, don't appear to think anything of him at all. Presumably they intend to rescue him when they rescue all the prisoners, as they decide to do later, but we don't know if they succeeded in saving him. (The Over the Nexus game tells a different story with a different outcome for him, and is not really relevant here.)
Fleshed-out based on canon:
Radley is actually from a wealthy family and grew up rich. It wasn't all fun and games, however; the family was strict and Radley was emotionally abused any time he did something his grandmother thought would ruin the family name. He spent many panicked hours locked in his room and swiftly developed a phobia of being alone. When he grew up and left home for college, he discovered new ways of life and embraced long hair, jewelry, and motorcycles. His grandmother pushed him down the stairs and disowned him. The rest of his family, afraid of her as always, just let her have her way.
Due to Radley's original name Ramon meaning Protector, it is headcanoned here that he was deliberately trying to protect the town from Malcolm. He fought for many years against Malcolm and wore down to become very cynical and bitter, but tried to be outwardly cheerful and happy for the Bunch.
It seems very likely that Radley is tortured in the mines. Due to Malcolm's frustration and anger with him, it is equally likely that he either wants to humiliate Radley by keeping him alive and slowly torturing him over months or that he wants to kill Radley right away to silence his problem once and for all. Radley's backstory follows the second option, with the guards working overtime to kill him via the shock collar and also with whipping. He also sees other prisoners being hurt or even killed by the guards. Some just collapse and lay there as the guards beat them. Some of Radley's gang has been put to work as guards in Malcolm's part of the mine and they encounter Radley, but out of fear for their lives they don't help him and just leave him in spite of his anguished pleas.
Radley struggles to escape the guards and wanders the mine, having lost all hope due to his friends and Kalin all abandoning him and the town falling to Malcolm and Lawton. He blames himself for everything and sinks into complete despair, believing everyone would be happier without him. When he finds a former Duelist of his, Jordan, alive after a fall that should have killed him, Radley summons up the strength to push him in the mine cart he fell in. The guards catch up and Radley has to send Jordan down the track in one last desperate attempt to save him and then gives himself up to the guards again as a distraction. They torture him the rest of the way until his body gives out and he dies believing all of his efforts have been for nothing and that no one will care about or miss him.
His gang, the Bunch, finds him dead later and falls into complete despair as well. But seeing their agonized grief and mourning while in spirit form, Radley realizes he is still loved and gets the strength to fight to live. He recovers physically, but has no chance to really recover emotionally and mentally before he's taken to the Pokemon world.
With so much pain not dealt with, he often wakes up screaming with the memories of the torture he went through and what he saw happening to others. He also has almost an obsession with being able to do something worthwhile to help in times of trouble due to feeling like a complete failure with his town. Having been abandoned sooner or later by everyone he cares about, Radley can't take much more of that and becomes withdrawn if he feels like it's happening again. He longs for companionship and friendship and is extremely devoted to his Eevees, as they are to him. He believes they, at least, won't leave him.