User:Rugiel/Protector

Rugiel

"Muah-hah-hah-hah!" laughed the crazed-looking fellow in a stained lab coat, as he threw levers and jabbed buttons all over the place. Within the impervium-braced glass enclosure, his hands bound in titanium manacles suspended above his head by a crackling stream of energy, a nondescript young man stared at him with fear in his eyes. It would be nice to say that his captor had carefully studied his victim for days, watching him from afar and making sure he wouldn't be missed, but in fact he had been on his way from work on a perfectly ordinary day when the mad scientist's thugs dogpiled him and hauled him off to this lab.

The mad scientist never asked his name; he simply cackled gleefully, snapped the manacles on his wrists, and suspended him naked in the glass tank, chortling all the while. Another look around revealed nothing more hopeful than the last look. If anything, the ominous glow from the intricate, arcane-looking etching under his bare feet served only to make his heart pound faster.

"Now," the mad scientist cried, loud enough to be heard within the tank, and then he said something else, but the awful screeching that filled the young man's ears drowned out the words. At his feet, the etching's glow flared blindingly bright only moments before a ravenous red-stained darkness drowned out the view from inside the tank. The young man struggled desperately, drowning in terror and despair. His whole body hurt, as if he were being burned and frozen and electrocuted at the same time. And his mind was drowning in another mind, full of hunger and evil. A demon was trying to steal his body.

Unexpectedly, the young man remembered the moment his mutant power had first manifested, a long time ago when he was the quiet one in class and a bully would pick on him. It made him angry, but the older boy had never tried to touch him. Until that day. The older boy grabbed his arm, screamed, and let go an instant later, holding his scorched hand. It was one of the few times when justice was served, since there was no logical way to explain how he could have possibly burned the older boy's hand. It was the first but not the last time he had made himself too hot to touch.

If he had had time to think it through, he might well have died, giving up his physical body to the demon's will to wreak havoc with as it chose. But all he had at that moment was instinct, compelling him to defend himself in a time-tested manner. He made himself as hot as he could, the way he had practiced. A sharp jab of fear from the demon encouraged him to fight back more fiercely, but then he heard a roar and an awful scream, his voice and the demon's welded together. His voice was not all that was being fused, but also his body and psyche. He realized too late that this was a very, very bad idea.

Like waking abruptly from a nightmare, the young man found himself back in the glass tank. Except he was no longer a young man. His distorted reflection showed him a monstrous nine-foot scarlet-skinned demon with flaming eyes and huge leathery wings, crunching the pieces of his shattered manacles under thick black hooves. His mind struggled to make sense of itself. He could barely remember anything, save an interminable agony of heat and fear, and a strange unnerving sensation of being too big. Outside the tank, the mad scientist had stopped cackling. He had stopped doing much of anything at all besides staring at the demon in the tank. It was probably fortunate for him that the ritual had left his victim disoriented, or things might have gone very pear-shaped. As it was, he had time to stutter the demon's name and, when he saw it did not have the intended effect, to flee.

Rugiel — for that was the demon's name — eventually managed to break, or rather melt, his way out of the glass tank, and proceeded to slag the mad scientist's lab in a thorough and methodical manner. While he did that, the part of his mind that had been human subdued the part of his mind that wanted to be demonic, absorbing memories of terrible infernal deeds, but at the cost of memories of his human life. Rugiel's conscience, repulsed at the thought of evil deeds, helped him determine that his future lay in proving himself worthy of trust. Besides, the mad scientist's ill-considered abduction still rankled, and he didn't want to be like that.

So, after taking a few days to set his affairs in order — which was frequently hindered by his radically altered appearance, as he suspected it would, but he was patient and civil and managed to get through it all relatively unscathed, especially after he took to wearing a scarf over the blank place where his mouth and chin should have been — he moved out to Paragon City, whose hero population would no doubt be more an asset than a hindrance.

Photon Shell

Freedom Corps' short-lived Warshade Project started and ended with one man. That man, Warren Finter, used to be a desk jockey in the Corps' Boston office, coordinating supply shipments between Paragon City and subsidiaries across New England. One day, he received a notice from the Paragon City HQ asking him to come down with the next shipment.

When he got there, he found one of the executive directors waiting for him. "Thank you for volunteering for our Warshade Project, Finter," he said.

"Huh?" Warren replied.

"Don't you remember? The Fourth of July mixer?"

"Uh … Oh yeah." Vague memories surfaced of names being drawn from a basket and a feeling of elation at discovering he’d won … something.

"Come on, this is an exciting opportunity for you!" the director exclaimed, clapping him on the shoulder. "Practically a promotion — no, better than a promotion!"

"Y–yeah."

Fortunately, it turned out that merging with a Kheldian was not some dramatic, traumatic near-death production; Warren thought it was an awful lot like having his wisdom teeth extracted, only that when he came out of the anesthesia, there was another consciousness next to his own. The Kheldian, calling itself Quincunx, felt quite comfortable in Warren's body and mind. In mere minutes, each shared in the other's history, and memories, and personality, and found they hit it off like a house on fire.

Oh, and Warren's skin turned black. Interstellar-space black. And all his hair fell out. (All of it. Not a single hair left on his entire body). The Corps was, perhaps understandably, wary of this unexpected side effect; but Warren actually rather liked these changes. He had always secretly thought of himself as "pasty white" and kept his hair cropped short so he wouldn't have to bother much with it. The Corps was, perhaps understandably, relieved to be thus informed.

The next few days, while interesting, were terribly unproductive. Warren's replacement was doing a fine job back in Boston. The director deemed the Project a minor success, but since no more Kheldians of either camp came forward requesting a junction with a Freedom Corps member, the Project was dropped — or suspended, at any rate.

Warren, of course, declined to have his old position back and parted amicably from Freedom Corps, thence to begin a new adventure as one of the heroes Freedom Corps caters to.

Katana Katana

Adrian McKiernan always knew he was a mutant, with his odd ears and interesting but useless ability to glow faintly while in motion. As he grew up, hearing fantastic tales of the heroes of Paragon City (and in particular those with powerful, useful mutations), he wished desperately to be one of them. Believing it was one way to approximate his dream, he trained extensively in Japan under a swordmaster, tempering his stubbornness and forging it, along with his armor, into something tough and practical. Though he agreed with his sensei that much remained for him to learn, he departed nonetheless, and brought his skills and two long golden blades back to the city. Only recently, however, has he discovered that he possesses the (much more useful) power to displace himself and others through space …

Palaemon

In a classic routine-experiment-gone-wrong scenario, Marianas Technologies, Ltd. lost its most dedicated intern. Trent Harmon arrived at work tired and irritable, but making an effort to be civil to his fellow researchers and technicians. With hardly a word exchanged, he donned the SCUBA suit and proceeded to the high-pressure testing tank.

Not five minutes later he knew something was very wrong.

The chatter in his ear comm revolved around the nanites that repaired and maintained the SCUBA suit; these had malfunctioned and, unable to distinguish between the suit and Trent's body, were diligently destroying any biomatter they came upon and replacing it with synthetic substance.

Trent's death took over an hour.

When the nanites were through, floating in the tank was a sentient inorganic being infused with what little remained of Trent's consciousness. To date, neither he nor MTL know his full capabilities, but continued research and programming have greatly expanded the originally documented specs.

Black Alloy Brawler

While visiting Kenya, August Carrelsen met Subria Ndekwosi and fell in love. He took her back to the States, married her, and had two children. Eventually, the four gravitated to Paragon City’s Overbrook neighborhood as August's musical instrument company grew.

There, they had the misfortune to be among the ground-zero witnesses of the Rikti Invasion, and the blessed fortune of being not only rescued from the chaos but also escorted to safety by none other than Michael White, along with a few of his Regulators.

Darius never forgot the big man’s brave act and, determined to repay someday what he felt was a debt owed to White and the heroes that had saved his and his family’s life, took up several forms of martial arts — only to be dissuaded by his parents, who — grateful as they themselves were that they had survived the invasion — considered Darius’s zeal seriously overreactive and foolhardy.

Darius respected their wishes — for a while. He cut down his training regime to boxing and karate, studied hard, and secured a job with Hephaestus Laboratories, a materials R&D company. Several months’ work later, he finagled a deal between HL and the leader of the Servants of Prime, a datasharing agreement that would allow him to field-test a power suit of an alloy developed by his team, christened eusite.

Thus he became the Black Alloy Brawler, with the accompanying funny look, eye rolling and headshake from just about everyone he meets, from the registrar to newspaper reporters. Michael White, upon meeting Darius, said, "I’m flattered, honestly, but …" and then he sighed meaningfully, shook his head, and changed the subject.

---

Elauele‘ele

Paulo Ehekahine. Troublemaker, rebel, vandal, archer. Troubled childhoods may be the product of circumstance and random unfortunate coincidences; but to be given the opportunity to wreak serious havoc, it takes an inheritance. In Paulo's case, it was a bow, presumably handed down through untold generations as far back as Japanese feudalism.

Paulo couldn't have cared less.

He took the bow with every intention of pawning it for as much as he could — but the moment he took it out of its case at the pawn shop, he knew. Spirits really were bound to the bow: one spirit to guide his hand, six spirits to aid him. Too bad he was not the responsible Hawaiian teenager his ancestors had hoped he would be.

How he ended up in the Ziggurat he refuses to tell, but he seems awfully satisfied about it.

Broken Flask

Nothing wrong with a little moonshine, right? A still, a few bottles, a sack of hops and all that stuff. Well, that went fine for a while. But then it wasn't enough. The guys wanted something stronger. OK, I hunted up a few ingredients to toss in the soup. It wasn't half bad, maybe a little too bitter. BUt then it wasn't enough either. So I went all out. I can't tell you what it was; a guy's got to keep some secrets. But I'll tell you this: when you throw it in the still, don't, for Pete's sake, don't ever, EVER let Tocko near while it's cooking. He'll blow it up. He did mine, and look what it did to me.
Funny thing is, the guys still take a swig now and then of the stuff. Even call it Oscar's Special. Sheesh.

Kttk’kttk

Kttk’tkttk is one very frustrated alien. Underequipped, underinformed, and under fire, a subversive T’kkt’zt’k faction flung him to Earth on a mission of conquest. Arriving only to find that the Rikti had already put the place on high alert was the last straw. Abandoning all allegiances, he simply uses his innate ability to cobble electroanimated constructs from whatever junk is lying around to take his frustrations out on any hapless Earthlings that get in his way.