Freak Accident

Origin: The Bad Old Days

He helped hijack the Excelsior truck that gave them their first taste of the juice, and he got into all kinds of mayhem with Dreck and Clamour, back in the 90s. He was just a typical thug from the slums of but a minor mutation in his body allowed him to metabolise the Excelsior drug at a phenominal rate. He grew to be one of Dreck's toughest enforcers, thought the two were never close.

A few years down the line, the Freakshow had become a major gang in Paragon City. Freak "earned his metal" by taking down a Warrior gang leader called Memnon, and claiming his axe. Freak eagerly added a cybernetic arm, but with a little more foresight than most Freaks at the time, he had a functional hand added to the end. He used Memnon's axe as a weapon, getting proficient in it and adding the sheer strength of his cybernetics. Times were good, and the Freakshow did what they wanted, to whoever they wanted.

As time went on though, new Freaks emerged to challenge Dreck's rule. He was tough and strong, but most of all Dreck was treacherous. Over time Dreck weeded out upcoming talent from the Freakshow so that he wouldn't have to face any challengers to his authority. Afterall, you don't lead a pack of anarchic angry young men hopped up on war drugs without learning a trick or two. Dreck schemed, lied, bribed and cheated to keep the competition for his place down to the bare minimum, and for a long tiem he got away with it. Freak Accident challenged Dreck, but not for leadership. Eventually having cottoned on to the devious and underhand way Dreck maintained his authority, Freak felt that wasn't the Freakshow way. He called out Dreck on his political backstabbing and tried to remind the Freaks that they joined up to be free, not to replace 'The Man' with Dreck's own brand of tyrany.

World's Shortest Political Career

It didn't go down well.

Dreck fought Freak one on one for an hour, but Freak was able to burn through Excelsior like it was Kool Aid, fighting harder and faster as Dreck wore down. Traditionally the Freakshow in the audience were free to throw missiles and generally harass the combatants but Bile, sensing that his leader was losing, tossed a well aimed EMP-taser device. The device clamped onto Freak and overloaded his cybernetics, giving Dreck the edge he needed to finish the fight. Dreck was about to tear the loser's arm off, but sensed the tension in the crowd. There was a rumbling of discontent about Bile's actions, especially considering when Freak had stood up to Dreck in the first place. In a rare show of mercy (born of political savvy rather than kindness) Dreck exiled the defeated Freak rather than kill him.

To ensure that the whole thing didn't come back to haunt him, Dreck decreed that the Freak's name must never be spoken again, and that he had remained in the Freakshow only "by accident". Thus the title "Freak Accident" came to refer to the exiled man. The Freakshow, sworn never to mention the disgraced Freak on pain of getting stomped on really hard in the nuts, found that they couldn't really discuss the treacherous Bile and whether or not Dreck would have won. In the end they simply forgot, and moved on.

Freak couldn't move on, however. Being Freakshow was the only thing in his life that ever made sense. Now he had to get them to respect him again, and defeat Dreck. He knew that his chance to beat him in battle was over, that wouldn't do anymore. He needed some time to build up respect and get the Freaks behind him. That meant putting the hurt on a lot of their enemies, but he couldn't do it alone. There were all sorts of capes and cowls on the streets these days shooting plasma-beam-ice-ray-psychic crap out of their eyes and dragging honest gangsters off the streets to rot in jail.

Accidental Hero

At first Freak fought alone. He was new, so they didn't let him go everywhere yet, and he had to talk to lazy bums in suits who stood about at street corners or whatever, handing out jobs instead of doing it themselves. Freak didn't really care that much. Blah blah here's an address, blah blah Hellions, blah. Go beat up some Hellions at the address, check back in and boom, the lazy suit dude is happy. Here's a cheque. Take it to that shop over there, they'll get you upgrades for your arm. Sweet.

Eventually though, he started running into other Heroes. "Can you help me clear out this nest of Vahzillok, they have a lab where they're..." "A'ight man, I hate zombies too." "If it got loose the virus could...." "I said, I hate zombies too. Let's go bring the pain." It didn't always work so well, since a lot of people had a problem with him being a Freakshow and all, but for the most part the Capes were okay to work with. He had to ignore a lot of their chat though, because as Freak saw it every Cape wanted to be your best friend and suggested they go drink lemonades at the puppy petting shop. He didn't want none of that.

A Little Birdie

Over time she taught him about being a hero. Well, kind of. Actually, she learned about being a hero herself, and just kind of dragged Freak with her. He found himself on the right side of the law, and holding back from general mayhem that Jade would disapprove of. When he fell off the wagon, she fixed it so he didn't lose his license. When he took too many hits, her magic powers fixed him right back up, and whenever some punkass tried to hit her, Freak taught them some manners. They made a great team, and before Freak knew it, he was more concerned with being a hero than winning back the Freakshow. He realised you could be a Freak and still be a "good guy". He kept all this to himself though, cause he didn't want some goddamn Hallmark moment where Statesman would give him a medal and then take him for lemonades at the puppy petting shop.