Rusted Man
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| |
| Rusted Man | |
| Player: User:Rusted | |
| Origin: | Science |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Controller |
| Security Level: | 50 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Unknown |
| Known Aliases: | Rusty |
| Species: | Robot |
| Age: | 63 |
| Height: | 6' 2" |
| Weight: | 426 lbs |
| Eye Color: | None |
| Hair Color: | None |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | American |
| Occupation: | Formerly a Tax Accountant |
| Place of Birth: | Steel Canyon, Paragon City |
| Base of Operations: | Paragon City |
| Marital Status: | Unknown (Most likely widower) |
| Known Relatives: | Unknown |
| Known Powers | |
| Telepathy and Telekinesis | |
| Known Abilities | |
| He is able to use telekinesis to reconstruct other machines or himself when damaged, he is also able to user telekinesis to vibrate himself or objects in the area to manipulate sound to a limited extent. His mental control seems to affect machines as well as human minds. | |
| Equipment | |
| He carries various tools he usually uses to repair himself as parts break down. | |
| Has a fairly well known weakness to water. Even small quantities can disrupt his powers while large quantities, such as being submerged, render him helpless and cause his body to fail. There is very little keeping his rusted mechanical body held together aside from his own telekinetic powers, occasionally when he loses focus for any reason appendages tend to fall off. This is his closest approximation to the expression of surprise. | |
Contents |
History
Recreation
Rusty doesn't really remember his life before the procedure, only the occasional faded image which he has cobbled together into a sort of time-line of his life... He was Born and raised in Steel Canyon, and is still familiar with its streets today but is disoriented by the changes he has missed in the last twenty years. He had a wife and children but can not recall their faces or names, only the knowledge that they existed. He worked as a Tax Accountant and would commute to Skyway on a daily basis... But that is all... Everything else was torn away from him.
He awoke to a start, but found himself unable to move or even breathe. 'Was he in a hospital?' was his first thought. Silent panic overtook him as he realized he couldn't feel his body or see. Only hear the crazed ranting of a man that stood over him. "Why won't you live!?", the man screamed. 'But I am alive.' is all Rusty wanted to say but found himself unable to utter a sound.
Over the next few days Rusty learned he was in the hands of a mad man, who had dreams of transplanting a human mind into a mechanical body. He himself had been discarded to a damp corner of the basement lab, as an 'unsatisfactory success', unable to move or interact with the world around him in any way. The scientist then left in search of a fresh 'specimen', he would never return. Rusty would later learn the man was defeated by one of the city's heroes. But without any way of alerting others of his plight he found himself left in the lab to rust away.
Initially madness started to overtake him, but slowly he learned to use his mind to 'see' by sensing the objects surrounding him, and eventually after many years of practice to even move objects around him with his mind. Finally, he was able to apply his powers of telekinesis to stand for the first time after twenty years of abandonment. But what life awaited him?
Life as a Monster
As he staggered out into the streets, the fragmented and rusted shell that served as his body struck fear in everyone that seen him. He started to drift though the back alleys of the city and making his home in empty warehouses. The papers thought he was some sort of new Clockwork menace or a Nemesis construct, with only blurry pictures to back up the sightings it was a cheap gossip rag of a paper, the 'Paragon Inquirer', that first gave him name, 'The Rusted Man'.
Life as a Hero
It was at this point, while wandering the streets of Atlas Park that he was finally confronted by a group of heroes, but instead of attacking, they questioned him. Finally deciding he wasn't a threat to the city, they showed him he wasn't alone in being considered a 'monster' and they offered him a place to stay as well as people he could rely on. This offer was too good to pass up, so the Rusted Man joined the ranks of the 'Phalanx of Paragon' under the leadership of John Starkweather.
During his time with the group he would devote his free time to repairing his rusted shell as best he could and under the training of Master Sergeant Morris found he was not totally helpless in combat. While Rusty refrained from taking lives as many others in the Phalanx seem to adopt as a standard practice, he still found himself rising quickly in ranks.
The first cracks in the Phalanx's façade began to appear after meeting a fellow member by the name of Darkress, he had gone on missions with this woman before, as he had with most of the members of the Phalanx. But in her he witnessed a deepening resentment of John's leadership. This eventually would come to a head during a street confrontation between her and John, during which the base's self destruct has been activated by Morris. Arriving on scene we were able to salvage 'most' of the base, but the damage it had done to the organization proved irreparable. Rusty found himself given a quick field commission and orders to repair the base, as John rushed off to confront Morris and Darkress, two people until this point Rusty had considered friends. Other members of the Phalanx would later find John's badly mangled body among the ruins of ordnance. They had finally claimed the life of the Phalanx's leader, and a man Rusty had come to trust...
Life as a Villain
Soon after Hero Corps would send a woman by the name of Project White Melody to replace John as leader of the organization. It wasn't long before official inquires of Phalanx members were announced, such was the case for Raina, whom Rusty considered a close friend. Other members such as Agent Valos were simply issued arrest on sight orders. There would be no trials, Morris and Darkress were soon executed, and Raina was imprisoned. Hero Corp 'justice' seemed brutal and without end. We had to intervene, even at the risk of becoming villains. Grim and Valos hatched a plan to break Raina out of imprisonment and Rusty agreed to aid them before she shared Morris and Darkress' fate. Needless to say the escape did not go smoothly and Melody's agent Mindstryker moved in to prevent the escape. At this point Valos dropped into the guise of a madman, threatening not only Mindstryker's life but that of Raina as well. A founding member of the Phalanx his true nature was exposed shattering the guise of the Phalanx as a heroic organization. Mindstryker was able to subdue Valos, but in the process was injuried himself. Taking both of them we retreated, leaving Mindstryker in the care of the hospital but with the knowledge of what we had done. The rest of us separated and went into hiding.
Later Rusty was called, and asked to report to HQ. After a short debate and learning of Valos' death at the hands of fellow Phalanx members Rusty decided there was little point in attempting to hide and did as he was asked. He was surprised to find Mindstryker had apparently down played his and Grim's involvement in the escape, to protect them from Melody's inquisition. Rusty was generally impressed with the man's courage in the face of what was going on around him. He would find himself confined to base for several days, but alive with a lingering sense that all was not as it seemed with the Phalanx...
Safe Havens
Rusty eventually was contacted by Mindstryker bringing him out of his isolation with a message to meet with him in Steel Canyon. There was somewhat a sense of foreboding as Rusty reported. It was there he was informed of John's resurrection and group shedding the now thin guise of the Phalanx to expose itself as the Villains of Paragon City. Despite the thought of those he was leaving behind Rusty agreed to Join Mindstryker, Grim, and Raina as part of a new team, the 'Safe Havens'... A name that no doubt will also prove misleading in the days to come...
What is it, to be 'Human'?
While he still claims to be human, in truth there is very little left of Rusted Man that could be considered 'Human', his brain is all that remains and even that was heavily reengineered by the procedure that created his body. He no longer feels pleasure or pain. Hunger and exhaustion are just words without context. Even simple emotions are fading away while as his psionic powers grow. Only two concepts remain that he feels gives him any remaining link to humanity;
- Knowledge of how he 'should' feel to any given act or event, which he then mimics to the best of his ability, to simulate emotions he no longer has.
- Fear... Fear of losing that last tenuous tread of humanity, and of what he might become without it.
His thoughts often drift to the many robotic beings that seemed to have acquired some level of sentience of their own, and Rusty muses at the fact his course seems to be the opposite...
The Rusted Machine
During his time with the VoPC Rusty became convinced the base was haunted. On Raina's advice he set up some recording equipment and learned that things did appear to move around on their own inside the base, but only when he was on station... It turned out that over the many years that Rusty had been developing his powers the metal of his rusted body has become psionically charged. It seemed to be able to retain form on it's own and move objects despite the wishes of his brain... In researching this Rusty has found the psionic metal in his body to be conscious to some extent, albeit with a very low intelligence, perhaps even capable of moving around on it's own without his brain to keep it in check.
It was during an experiment to infuse Rusty with magical power that the entity known as Rusted Machine broke free from his control and began running amok in the city. After its defeat by Rusty's friends, Mystic's Shadow was able to neutralize the negative emotions, psionically imprinted on the metal, effectively destroying the creature... Or, so he thought...
Comments
((Feel free to leave a comment.))
"Ahh Rusty.. he's a great friend and can always be counted on for assistance. I find it interesting how he still manages to remain himself despite all he's been through. I feel honored to call him a friend.. and he's great at building stuff too!" - Raina Sylvir
"Rusty's a class act, a great friend, and an amazing engineer. When he says he's got your back, he means it. How many people, even heroes, can you really say that about?" - Mindstryker
"Such an impressive display of loyalty and skill this man has. Unfortunately, he's a bit... rusty when it comes to combat." John Starkweather
"Okay, so he and magic don't quite mix. He is a gentleman and a brilliant scientist, not minding being a victim - er, subject - of my experiments with magic on him. I'll do anything for him - I consider him my best friend." Grimaulkin
"When I first came to Safe Haven, no one really trusted me. Rusty was the first. If I can ever be at his service, I shall be." Jack LeBeuregard
"Well, why don't we all just turn all of our workers into clones of Rusty, so we don't have to worry about it?" Operative Valos
"He should be named Trusty. The most level-headed superhero I've had the pleasure of knowing." Unimpressed
