Hamza was born in the cooking tents, his mother a baker of flatbread, his father a sand cook who prepared meals for the Champions. The boy grew up inhaling spice smoke and watching powerful men eat, knowing he would never be one of them by blood.

At twelve, he manifested his powers during a wrestling match with the Champion’s son, accidentally shattering the boy’s knee with a concussive blast triggered by rage and contact. The Empire saw potential, where his parents saw danger, recruiting him into training rather than imprisoning him.

For three years, he fought in underground wrestling pits, defeating opponents through brutal efficiency rather than technical grace, earning coin and scars in equal measure. The matches were bloody and unregulated, winners crippling losers for life, and Hamza learned that mercy was a luxury of the protected while he needed victory to survive.

His raw power drew attention from the Sand Alliance themselves, and at sixteen, he entered the official promotion tournaments, fighting seven consecutive ranked matches over three days until his ribs cracked and his hands bled and he stood alone as the victor.

He became Second Champion around the same time Omar became First. He has never once let himself ask, out loud or otherwise, whether those two things happening back to back was a coincidence. Some part of him suspects it wasn’t. A larger part of him has decided that’s a fight he doesn’t have the right weapon for, and Hamza has never been a man who throws a punch he isn’t sure will land.