Jean-Pierre L'Etoille was born in Andorra la Vella, the capital of Minerva, the son of Alex and Rebecca L'Etoille. Alex had been born in Minerva, the son of Justin (a computer programmer) and Yvette (an architect and engineer).
Alex had entered the Minervan Monitors straight from school and, through enthusiasm and a quick mind for organisation and planning rapidly gained promotion to the rank of Lieutenant. It was while dealing with a fire at a medical research laboratory in the capital that he first met Rebecca, a post-Doctoral researcher involved in work to advance the techniques of bio-regeneration who had arrived in Minerva three years previously (attracted by the availability of funding and concentration of eminent workers in the field, including the Amazon. At the time she was trapped in a corner of the lab, cut off by the fire and the toxic fumes in the corridor outside.
Alex was the officer in charge of the evacuation and was leading the rescue team that found Rebecca and brought her to safety. She was hospitalised for a couple of weeks due to the toxins she had breathed in, and during this time Alex visited her to check on her progress and question her regarding the fire. At first this was out of a sense of professional responsibility, but after a few visits it was plain she didn't know much about the cause of the fire - it started in a different lab to hers - and he invented more and more tenuous excuses to visit. A mutual attraction had sprung up between them, and eventually she caught him out when he arrived with "just a couple of points to clear up" after the case had been officially closed!
After Rebecca left hospital, she and Alex saw more and more of each other, getting engaged about two months later. She was attracted by his humorous demeanour and enjoyed spending time with someone completely unconnected with her research and around whom she could discuss work problems and relax. Eight months later they were married, and just two weeks later Alex was promoted to the command of his sectors Monitor forces.
Things went well for them. Rebecca's research was progressing well with new techniques approaching imminent completion, and Alex continued to advance in rank, earning commendations for bravery on two occasions.
Three years later they had twins - a son, Justin Jean-Pierre L'Etoille (named after Alex's father), and a daughter, Caroline.
Shortly after the family moved out of Andorra to allow Rebecca to take a post as chief researcher of a new team being set up to investigate a newly proposed medical technique. The area they moved to was some way from the nearest town and so Justin and Caroline spent a lot of time playing together in the surrounding woods and valleys as there were few other children their age living nearby. The bond between them grew stronger with the years and continued even after they started school, neither of them wanting to spend much time away from the other. At about this time they both tested positively for an active supergene but as yet the only manifestation of this was in an uncanny ability to know what the other was doing or if they were in trouble...
However, at the age of seven Caroline was being bullied by a gang of older children who were extremely surprised when Justin jumped them from behind, having sensed Caroline's distress, and created a blinding flash of light and then subdued them all in the confusion.
After this they were both re-tested more thoroughly, and Caroline's latent mental powers were also discovered.
As the years passed Justin began to develop into a fine athlete, beating many children older than him in contests and competitions, whilst Caroline began to develop her considerable mental powers and excel academically (surprising even Justin in her endeavours).
Eventually they passed the adulthood tests and graduated into adulthood, and from school. Justin entered the Monitors (to his fathers delight and pride), whilst Caroline continued studying at the University of Minerva. By this time the bond between them had become strong enough that they were no longer distressed by separation from one another.
Over the next few years Justin advanced in the Monitors, moving to the nearby arcology of Huesca, coincidentally not far from the branch of the University where Caroline was studying.
Then, in early 1991, tragedy struck with the collapse of the Amazon during her annual New Years speech. In the ensuing changes Justin became increasingly disturbed by Blackheart's decisions and the pervasive shift in the role of the Monitors. When tensions came to head he was one of the first to rebel against her regime.
Both he and Caroline joined the Rebel forces as the political climate turned towards civil war, though Caroline refused to fully accept the seriousness of the situation until their parents were both killed in the blast caused by the destruction of a power plant hear their home.
At that point, Caroline joined the civil war as well, overcome by the grief she felt, intensified by the bond with Justin, who felt the same. Then came the most devastating blow - Caroline was killed by Terror Incorporated (who were working for Blackheart and the Minervan government), in an attack away from the front line of the fighting.
Justin was too late to save her, but in a savage rage threw himself against all of Terror Inc., blinded by fury, grief and a terrible sense of loss. He managed to kill the member of Terror Inc. responsible for his sisters death but was overcome by the rest of the villains and taken away by them.
Justin was brutally but effectively brainwashed by Gaea, possessed by Vladimir Zakminsky, the man responsible for the whole Minervan civil war. During the next few months he was operated on repeatedly, drug glands were added, micro-cybernetic implants installed to focus and boost his intrinsic powers, and his skeleton reinforced at strategic parts by metal reinforcements until finally his captors released him as an assassin and saboteur to fight against, the rebels, his own side.
Over that year he led missions to destroy power plants, military bases and supply lines; eliminated key rebel personnel, and when it seemed the rebels might be close to getting French or Spanish backing he was sent to eliminate the key ministerial proponents of these ideas on both sides. Throughout it all he was like an automaton, ruthlessly efficient and pitiless, committing atrocities without pause whilst all the while a small part of his former self lay trapped within his captive mind, forced to watch with mounting horror as he killed and destroyed.
Until, finally, Vladimir Zakminsky was killed, and Justin was released from his bondage. But the man who inhabited Justin's body had been transformed by horror and grief and loss from the idealistic young Monitor into a cynical, embittered man, scarred beyond his years and for the first time in his life ... alone.
J.P. in Champions terms.