Leo Stenbuck

"I'm _not_ a kid!"

A 14-year old boy from the space colony Antilia, Leo Stenbuck was thrust into the war when, during an attack by the Martian military organization BAHRAM on his home, he literally fell into the cockpit of the experimental Orbital Frame Jehuty. This kicked off a series of events that culminated in Leo, lacking any family or home to return to on the battle-ravaged space colony, joining the EFA as a pilot. Despite his age and lack of official training, Leo demonstrates a great deal of skill in the cockpit, flying as well as most profesionally trained pilots and getting better all the time. Outside the cockpit, however, he is still just a child. He's stubborn and opinionated, and struggles not only with his internal moral conflict regarding the necessary evils of war, but with the mood swings and hyperemotional reactions that accompany puberty.

Background Information
Ever since Leo was born, no one has wanted him. The result of an accidental pregnancy by a young married couple, both of whom had immigrated to Antilia when they were young, Leo's formative years were much the same as anyone's. He did, however, spend much of his time with a babysitter, as both of his parents worked full-time; he only saw either of them a little each day, and he almost never saw them both at the same time.

When Leo was 10, he and his parents had a rare family meal together... at which they broke the news that they were getting a divorce. After some half-hearted assurance that it was not his fault, they proceeded to have a loud and lengthy argument over his custody; not over who GOT to keep him, but over who had to.

Leo's father lost, and his mother moved out; Leo never saw her again. The memory of the argument, and the concept that he was an unwanted burden, drove Leo to introversion, and he would spend much of the rest of his time on Antilia friendless and alone.

The trend of being unwanted continued in his school and social lives. His lack of motivation and interest in school subjects, crowned by a lack of any real academic potential, led every teacher he had to give up on him and allow him to coast through school a C student.

When he was 13, he finally fell in with a group of friends from school. Much to his chagrin, however, they only kept him around to bully and tease him. There was one exception, however; a girl named Celvice, the first person to show Leo genuine kindness, and they formed an awkward, tentative friendship

In early NCA 118, Leo's life was thrown into chaos when BAHRAM attacked Antilia in search of the Orbital Frame Jehuty. After witnessing all of his friends except Celvice being crushed under a falling Phantoma LEV, Leo fled into a nearby warehouse, pursued by an unmanned Raptor Orbital Frame.

In his attempts to hide, he literally fell into the cockpit of BAHRAM's target, Jehuty, and at the prodding of the Frame's onboard AI, A.D.A., and later the Co-Captain of the EFA Atlantis, Elena Weinberg, Leo piloted Jehuty in defense of Antilia and with the goal of crossing the station and boarding the Atlantis to flee.

Despite having never so much as played a giant robot video game, Leo tore a path through the primarily unmanned BAHRAM forces, and even defeated several officers of BAHRAM flying manned Class C Frames. Along the way, he managed to save an impressive number of Antilian residents, including Celvice, despite being massively outnumbered.

His path of victory stopped when he encountered, only minutes away from the Atlantis, Jehuty's sister frame Anubis, piloted by Colonel Nohman of BAHRAM. Despite being thoroughly beaten without so much as scratching the paint on Anubis, Leo managed to escape thanks to fire support from the Atlantis, and the Frame and ship escaped the pursuing BAHRAM forces and began their journey back to Earth, where they would arrive in early July, NCA 118.

Personality Traits
Leo is hard to get to know, and harder to get along with. He'll participate in conversations, though capable of being extremely verbose about subjects he feels strongly about, Leo almost never makes himself 'emotionally available' and will withdraw from most attempts to get to know him as anything more than an acquaintance, even if it's a reciprocation of an attempt by him to do likewise.

Leo is extremely opinionated about a great deal of things, and many things he'll form an opinion or belief about immediately and then refuse to admit he's wrong, even when evidence suggests that he is, until it becomes absolutely undeniable that it's the case.

Those things he doesn't hold kneejerk-formed opinions about, he holds unrealistically idealistic ones instead. Among these is his reluctance to kill his enemies; despite a growing doubt that it won't work, he remains steadfast in his insistence that if he defeats the 'bad guys' often enough, they will simply give up without him having to kill them. There are, however, probably a very few exceptions to this rule.

To make matters worse, Leo's smack dab in the middle of puberty. Even little things can set him off on a mood swing, or trigger some sort of hyperemotional overreaction, and it's not uncommon for him to be uncharacteristically chatty one moment and suddenly moody and sulky the next.

Despite his childish behavior, however, Leo is a good kid at heart, and has only the best interests of all of humanity in mind in his role in the ongoing war.

Talents & Abilities
Despite his age and lack of any substantial formal training, Leo is an extremely capable Mobile Suit operator, easily competing with professional pilots with years of experience. In particular, he shows an uncanny knack for picking up the control schemes of a unit almost instantly.

The best example of this is the Antilia Incident, where Leo literally fell into the Orbital Frame Jehuty and destroyed his first enemy less than fifteen seconds later, despite Jehuty's nonconventional will-based control system.