First Victim

From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe

First Victim
Player:
Origin:	Mutation
Archetype:	Dominator
Threat Level:	50
Personal Data
Real Name:	Kevin DeSantis
Known Aliases:	Vic, Planty, The Gardener
Species:	Human
Age:	Confidential
Height:	6' 1"
Weight:	205lbs
Eye Color:	Sewn Shut
Hair Color:	Blonde
Biographical Data
Nationality:	American
Occupation:	None
Place of Birth:	Unknown
Base of Operations:	St. Martial
Marital Status:	Unmarried
Known Relatives:	None
Known Powers
Plant Control, Psionic Assault, Soul Mastery
Known Abilities
Leaping, Fitness
Equipment
Confidential
No additional information available.

This character is my crowning achievement in evolution of theme. He started out as your wrathful "OMG I HATEZ JOO" character in beta, but slowly evolved into this menacing idea of psychological warfare capitalizing on my main heroine's guilt of killing a man before she registered as a hero. Since then the story has evolved into this character whose agents and puppet minions continually show themselves in RPs as "observers of the master's interest", allowing me to gain plenty more friends and enemies in RP.

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Enclosed in the transcript post-arrest of Kevin DeSantis, whose criminal handle is “First Victim”. He was arrested June 23rd, 2004 for 1 count of murder, 5 counts of attempted murder, 6 counts of vandalism, and three counts of regulation 41.2, otherwise known as the psychic endangerment clause.

Full Name: Kevin Michael DeSantis Date of Birth: 2/6/1981

Classification: Dominator class, threat level Alpha Tango.

Identifying marks: Eyes and mouth and sewn shut. The eyes, tightly; the mouth, not sealed, but only opened for ingestion. Communicates through a puppet minion or other animated object.

Known powers: Plant Manipulation Psychic Assault Flight

Motivation: DeSantis seems singularly motivated on revenge, but appears very meticulous on how he goes about it. He delays his hedonism intentionally, deriving some sick satisfaction from the “ladder he must climb” to his ultimate goal. Psychological profiling is of course ineffective due to his nature – but at a glance he appears to simply be engaged in a form of torture, a constant trail of crime executed in an attempt to draw out his nemesis, a hero who he blames for his condition.

Account: His one goal seems to be to extinguish Red Switchblade, hero of Paragon City whom he claims felled him early in his career as a Hellion. Longbow reports reflect that this is indeed true, hero Red Switchblade (Hitherto referred as hero) was hiding her powers for some time and and when finally forced to defend herself was not regulated by the Atlas Park Hero Registration Board – this led to the ethically debatable lethal self-defense maneuver that DeSantis received. Reports are unclear as to the outcome of the fight, because it moved quickly from its origin point down two blocks closer to the tram before it was apparently resolved – the hero had made off (either in fear or in pursuit, we cannot discern), and Longbow dealt with the cleanup, which generated curiosity when DeSantis could not be accounted for, his body apparently dragged several feet and transported away by a third party during the height of the tussle’s confusion.

Because of the nature of his sustained wounds, DeSantis cannot explain nor define how his power came to be or work. His goal, near as we can glean, is to someday even the score, to stand face-to-face with the hero and, in his words, “Give heroism a villainous end”. Maximum security had been enforced in Ziggursky since his intentions and power were unstable and unclear.

Below is a transcript of the interview with DeSantis during his stay, shortly before Lord Recluse staged a breakout.

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[Doc] : Please state your name for the recording, son.

A faint buzzing is heard, nothing more.

[Doc] : Let the record show that Mr. DeSantis has spoken directly to my mind, indicating the folly of the tape recording. Recording will resume shortly.

Tape scratches and crackles for a moment.

[Doc] : August 24th, 2005. Doctor Adam Rosenbloom, interviewer. I am accompanied by the hero Brainfreeze who has agreed to act as a conduit for Mr. Desantis, a.k.a First Victim [FV], to speak. In accordance with law and psychic ethics, Brainfreeze [BF] has agreed to these terms and a psychic dampening device has been placed outside to keep either from getting control of the other. During this time, Brainfreeze will not be speaking, so anything he says is to be the words of Mr. DeSantis. We will commence with questioning now.

Question One, how would you like to be referred to?

[FV] : I preferred to be called Victim, Doc.

[Doc] : Very well. You can call me Adam if that makes you more comfortable.

[FV]: Okay. Fu** off, Adam. Comfortable is relative when you’re in a strait jacket and your sewn eyelids are itchy.

BF at this time walks over to DeSantis and rubs his eyes for him.

[Doc] : Brainfreeze, did you do that of your own free will?

Pause…

[Doc] : Brainfreeze has indicated using the safety gesture that he is still under his own control. Moving on, tell me more about the day you met Red Switchblade, Victim.

Brainfreeze moans for a moment.

[Doc] : Let the record show that Brainfreeze expresses pain on this subject, on behalf of Victim. What can you tell me?

[FV] : I was in my routine. Wake up in my Kings Row apartment – shower, shit, and leave myself looking unshaven. You know, for effect. Brainfreeze lets out a low groan. It was induction day for me as a Blood Brother, and I was off to Galaxy to satisfy the first precept, Civil Harassment.

[Doc] : Civil Harassment?

[FV] : Your day-to-day crime, Doc. It shouldn’t be too hard to decipher with your Harvard degree.

[Doc] : Let the record that Victim is capable of reading my thoughts, and this interview is being compromised. Terminating recording now.

[FV] : Like hell it is. I’m getting my story out.

A scuffle is heard, followed by a sickening thud. Doctor Alan Rosenbloom was pronounced dead from blunt cranial trauma at 10:23am on October 31st, 2005 – bringing DeSantis’ total murder count to two at this time. DeSantis maintains speech through Brainfreeze.

[FV] : You civil-minded servants of good, you think your technology and your ethics can save me? I’m here because of the “forces of good”, which proves that your system is flawed. Had it not been for the heroine, I would not have had three stabs wounds in my face – hardly what I’d consider ethical apprehension. Adam here had more skeletons in his closet than I ever did – you trusted this man to report my story accurately? I could feel his seething bias the moment I walked in. It’s not what you know, it’s what you can prove. Therein lies all the power and truth in this world.

Brainfreeze stops for a moment, possibly in unrest from the oppressive control of DeSantis. The fidgeting stops, and a glass of water is poured. Brainfreeze drinks it, exhales deeply, and continues.

[FV] : Power, truth. Such topics, eh? I’ve had a long time to think about such things. Thinking is all you can do when your eyes and mouth are stitched shut anyway. Without my eyes to report the changes in the sky, my days dragged on longer than you could imagine. In that time, I’ve come to realize just how shallow and empty your concepts of power and truth are. Power comes from action, not from your paper-pushing bureaucracy – and truth comes from perspective. Control this bureaucracy, however, and you can control all the action and truth this world ever sees. Ever stop to think about just how little you probably know about what this city does to keep itself “safe”? How many “heroes” are detained or controlled out of fear they’d end up with Recluse? Good, and evil, my friends, are relative.

Brainfreeze pauses to take another drink.

[FV] : Brainfreeze, is it? This is an interesting hero to choose to speak for me. A real model of truth and justice. I like the patriotic costume. Let me see… oh yes, a real winner. Did you know when he was fourteen…

A sharp thump is read against the table, as if Brainfreeze attempted to wrest control.

[FV] : Easy there, Brainfreeze. Like I said, truth is all about perspective. So is Justice. Let the record show, (an evil laugh is heard) that he used his powers to coerce his dreamgirl to slobber all over his bone? Oh, but it doesn’t stop there. She was apparently a very dirty girl despite her upbringing. When she met him, suddenly her notions of celibacy until marriage were overridden by… love, was it? Oh yes, classic abuse of power. You’re my kind of guy, Brainfreeze.

Another drink of water is taken.

[FV] : Oh, but here’s where it gets better. Overridden by guilt and rage, she threatens to tell her parents. You acted out of self-defense, right? Even you didn’t know what to do with your mind open to all possibilities and thoughts. In the moments before she let the truth out, you made her tell her parents she was a lesbian. Her proud military father threw you out, and beat her half to death on the spot. You never saw her again, but whatever he did to her kept your secret safe apparently. Justice served, secret safe. I guess that’s why you’re a hero – to atone. Well your secret is safe with me… oh wait, the tape. (Another evil laugh) Well, truth is relative, like I said.

Let’s see what other questions Doctor Adam had for me. Let’s see. Boring, boring, lame, boring, irrelevant… ah ha! This one’s a good tale. How I got my powers. Pull up a chair, Brainfreeze, and we’ll spin a yarn.

It was just a routing mugging when I met Red Switchblade for the first time, part of my induction to the Blood Brothers, like I said. My Postulate Supervisor, as they called it – they tried their best to make the organization mirror the fraternity concept – was leading the heist, which was just to take the bitch’s purse and rough her up. She took a couple hits, but was surprisingly tough. Hell, I don’t even think she felt it. Hero in denial, by the way, is one of the most dangerous forces on the planet if nobody knows about them. Nothing more than a villain without intent.

Anyway, my boss taunts her to punch him on the chin, and she winds up. The rest is blurry, mainly because she proved her point by (an incredible strain is put on Brainfreeze’s voice for this) by STABBING ME IN THE FACE. With metal claws in each of my eyes and the third lodged in my forehead, I stood there helpless, held up by her claws entirely. She retraced them from my face and I heard my friends beating the living shit out of her while my life spilled onto the concrete. I should have been dead, hell I had wished I was, but something kept me alive despite these gaping wounds.

(In a mocking tone) But Victim, how did you get your powers? (Retorting to himself) I’m getting there. I felt my body being dragged by the legs. With little regard for my health, my face dragged across the concrete, aggravating my wounds further. I could feel flecks of dirt flipping up into my eye sockets, my lips being worn off by the rough pavement. Yes, pavement. I remember the texture change right before I was thrown into a van and driven off with.

When I came to, I was strapped to a vertical gurney. I could no longer feel a draft in my eye sockets, so I could only imagine that they had been sealed. I tried to open them but felt some resistance from what I could only assume was tough cloth string. I tried to scream, but felt the same resistance sharply from my mouth.

Then, as though the world had finally cut me a break, I began to see. I didn’t know how, my eyes were still clearly sewn shut. But I became acutely aware of everything around me. The dripping water in the back of the room, the damp floor, the mice scurrying about, it all appeased my other senses, which coalesced into some working picture that my mind made for me. It’s like seeing, but not quite. Imagine looking at a picture on a light-brite, for instance. Look too closely and you see plastic pegs, but look more broadly and you see the fish with water bubbles coming from its mouth. It generally improved after I escaped, but for now I was seeing in blurred forms and outlines.

I met my benefactor shortly after this, who monologued to me about being far more than anything my life as a street thug could have been. Let me see what I can remember from that…

Brainfreeze pours some more water from the jug and drinks.

Ah yes. I’m going to stylize it a bit because my mind was aflame with rage and claustrophobia at the time, but the gist of it went something like this:

“Your life was meaningless before, victim. (Victim was what he called me, understand, I’m not being vain.) I have breathed into you new life, new perspective, and new direction with the technology of the society you scorn. Now converted, you can be set loose upon those that have hurt you!”

I tried to speak, but couldn’t. To my surprise he responded to what I couldn’t say.

“Your eyes and mouth are a distraction, victim. But your mind has been shown to me as the greatest tool of all. Reach out with it, speak with it, see with it. Nobody can hide from it.”

I did reach out, and found my powers were a bit beyond what he thought I possessed. Thank god for the damp stony floor and the room he put me in. I found that nothing could indeed hide from my mind, not even the whispers of the plants. Reaching out to them, I commanded one to grow and grabbed this man’s foot. I set loose upon him first, as he suggested. (a snicker is heard) He had hurt me, after all, by sewing my mouth shut. Bifurcating this vine at the root, the second one undid my restraints. I stumbled, but the vine caught me. Kneeling down half in exhaustion and half in dramatic effect, I listened to the man choke and die at the hand of his own work. Putting my hand on his back, I soothed him, and then came in contact with the greatest feel of all – extinguishment. His body heat drained from his body past mine, in what was an almost orgasmic rush of senses.

I ended up in Paragon City about a month later, when my vision could transmit on the fly. It was there in Steel Canyon that I met her again, the hero of my origin. It’s eerie, the link we share. When finally we encountered each other, we both knew it. A chill struck me to my very core, as it clearly did for her. I saw it as she flew overhead, stopped, and warmed her arms. Some sort of twisted bond exists between her and eye now, perhaps exchanged when her claws pierced my impressionable grey matter a month prior.

She came down to investigate, and inquired to some citizens about the sensation she felt. Miffed that she was the only one acutely aware of some presence here, she made her way to me after a while, as I was trying to walk away from her with my hood up. She grabbed me and turned me around to face her and gasped. Staring into my swollen and sutured face, she didn’t know what to think or say. Reacting as best I could, I entangled her and five other citizens in vines. Exposing myself, I monologued about who I am and laid my best guilt trip on her about how I came to be.

To make her know the consequences of her hasty justice, I slaughtered the citizen next to her. I doubt she’ll forget my name or face now, which draws the inevitable showdown I crave. The PPD rolled up quickly, and I submitted to my beating without resistance, which is why I’m here. Well, was here.

A voice is heard far away.

It appears I’ve overdone it on the monologuing. Perhaps another time when you catch me, we can finish up on these questions? I do terribly enjoy the prospect of answering the one about mom and dad…

You hear a chair push across the floor, and someone stand up. The single door to the room opens. You hear a soft whirr, then it power off. Down the hallway, someone yells “THE FIELD IS D-“ and then stops. Another chair pushes across the floor. A liquid hits the floor. Jason McPeek, a.k.a Brainfreeze, was prounounced dead of self-inflicted stab wounds to the face with his own trademark ice-knife at 11:47pm on October 31st, 2005.

Kevin DeSantis, a.k.a. First Victim, has been loose from Ziggursky Correctional Facility since this recording. Shortly after the tape stopped rolling, the infamous Lord Recluse breakout occurred, and DeSantis has been holed up on the Rogue Isles under Recluse’s watch ever since. Longbow and Paragon City PD are on alert should DeSantis re-emerge, since his capabilities are unknown in their limits.