Index-Z
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
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| "I will not kill. I won't give my 'programmers' satisfaction." | |
| Index-Z. | |
| Player: Index. | |
| Origin: | Natural. |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Scrapper. |
| Security Level: | 40 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Martin Chronos. |
| Known Aliases: | Index-Zeta, Index-Zed. |
| Species: | Human. |
| Age: | 24. |
| Height: | 6 foot 4 inches. |
| Weight: | 195 pounds. |
| Eye Color: | Hazel. |
| Hair Color: | Dark brown. |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | British. |
| Occupation: | Bartender, Freelance-Artist. |
| Place of Birth: | No record. |
| Base of Operations: | No record. |
| Marital Status: | Single. |
| Known Relatives: | No living family. |
| Known Powers | |
| None. | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Adept at various martial arts and fighting techniques, skilled tactician. | |
| Equipment | |
| High density light-weight combat suit, built-in visual computer, various weaponry. | |
| ' | |
Contents |
Background and Origin
Martin Chronos was an artist who came from Wales, Britain to Paragon City to try and get his art displayed in one of the most famous cities on Earth. He was also an out-of-work artist due to the fact that "everyone is a critic" there was always someone who wanted to pull the plug on his work. It was because of these critics that Martin was the Paragon City National Bank looking for a loan when a group of super-criminals arrived to rob the bank. If this was not bad enough, a passing super-hero noticed the commotion inside the bank and confronted the criminals. During the chaos of this battle between super-beings, a criminal organisation known only as 'The Codex' kidnapped Martin and a group of other unfortunate bystanders. The reasons for their capture were simple, all the civilians captured where reasonably young and fit, and during all the commotion they would not be immediately missed.
'The Codex' has but one goal, create the perfect human being. Captured civilians are subjected to experiments in order to make them ‘beyond human’. Such experiments included imbuing subjects with arcane energies, or forcibly altering their personal evolution, and through this research several ‘beyond humans’ were created, the ‘Index Series’ was born. However during all of these experiments one scientist pointed out that while they had created many humans that were beyond the human limit, they had not actually created a ‘perfect human’. And so it came to pass that Martin was chosen at random to undergo the process to make him a perfect human, within the human limit. His body was artificially rebuilt and toned to human physical perfection. Also, after being inspired by “The Matrix” the scientists ‘downloaded’ the martial arts skills of many martial arts masters into his brain, along with many, many other skills such as tactics, escape artistry, and computer hacking. The scientists also realised that their ‘perfect human’ while able to defeat any and all normal humans with ease would probably have to do battle with super-beings, and so Martin was outfitted with a combat suit designed to withstand attacks from even the most powerful super-being. Also built into the combat suit was a computer that would aid their ‘perfect human’ in various ways such as hacking security consoles or downloading information. And so the final touches where placed on their new perfect being. He would be programmed to ‘The Codex’s’ personal assassin, Index-Zeta.
However, while the scientists were marvelling at their latest work, the combined knowledge of over a dozen martial arts masters awoke a willpower never before encountered by the Codex researchers. This newfound source of will allowed Martin to reclaim his identity and overpower the Codex brainwashing. It was a bitter irony for The Codex when Martin used the skill they gave him to not only escape his holding cell but to also overpower the security and free the remaining captives of the facility, he then proceeded to torch it to the ground. While making his own escape, Martin saw his reflection in a broken mirror. He saw his combat-suit and helmet and realised he couldn’t be just Martin Chronos anymore, that he had to become more than that. Innocent people are hurt, robbed, murdered, and changed into something they weren’t every day. And so Martin swore to battle crime and oppression, as Index-Z, a mockery of the ‘Index-Zeta’ persona that ‘The Codex’ wanted him to become.
First Forays in Crime-fighting
Index-Z would be the first to admit that he was a complete and total amateur at crime fighting. Although he had the knowledge of dozens of martial arts masters, he initially had difficulty utilising their skills in combat. Often having the memories of one martial artist clashing on how to deal with a certain problem, a thug is attacking with a knife, one memory urges a sweep-kick, another a palm strike. This resulted in more than a few mishaps in the beginning of his career where he would have difficulty deciding on what course of action to take. Realising that if these mental foul-ups continue his career as a crime-fighter would be rather short. He spent two nights and a day in meditation, where he ordered the vast amount of knowledge and memories downloaded into his brain. After doing so, his second debut as a crime-fighter was far more successful, with all of his skills in mental order, Index-Z was ready to fight crime.
His second goal, was to track down more facilities owned by the Codex, and destroy them, for the most part his searches have been fruitless, save one time, he had been given a lead to Galaxy City, where there were rumours of a recently established Codex facility. However, Index-Z should not have gone to so much trouble, as the Shivan attack destroyed the facility for him. Even if it was unintentional, Index-Z found the karma of the situation most satisfying.
Hero?
Martin Chronos was a reclusive man, even before the events that lead to him becoming Index-Z. So therefore he didn’t know much about how super-heroes did their work legally beyond the fact that they could. So in that event Index-Z had no clue that he needed a licence to be a ‘hero’ in Paragon City. Thus Martin was surprised that when he tried to drop off a group of jewellery thieves to the PPD that two ambitious officers decide to arrest Index-Z for being an un-registered hero. Index-Z reacts on instinct and incapacitates the two officers. Events escalate quickly and before any explanations can be made on either side, an entire station house of PPD officers try to arrest Index-Z for this actions against their co-workers, with Index-Z reacting in self-defence. Unfortunately for the PPD, they were absolutely no match for a man who was programmed to face super-powered beings in combat.
Although Index-Z used a minimum amount of force, this incident taken out of context was damning evidence in the eyes of others that Index-Z was a new super-criminal. For the next few weeks Index-Z found his new calling in life very, very difficult. Stopping crimes would lead to him having to fight a battle on two fronts as the PPD couldn’t distinguish between the ‘threat’ of Index-Z and the criminals he was fighting. To the public, Index-Z painted a confusing picture, he would fight crime whenever he encountered it, yet he was also wanted by the PPD for ‘crimes against the city’. However, Martin finally caught a lucky break as a Longbow agent that was assigned to monitoring the ‘new threat’ of Index-Z discovered that no one actually knew what Index-Z was wanted for besides ‘crimes against the city’, after a thorough investigation the Longbow agent discovered that the whole mess with Index-Z and the PPD was the result of a gross misunderstanding and overzealous action bred from ambition.
However, although it was discovered that Index-Z was innocent of the ‘crime’ that caused his wanted status, the fact that he has incapacitated literally dozens of officers of the PPD could not be overlooked. Eventually the decision was made to apologise to Index-Z for the overzealous actions of the PPD, and that his punishment for his own exaggerated response to their pursuit would be community service, as a registered hero. While there was some grumbling from some community officials, the matter of Index-Z’s farcical ‘punishment’ was never fully investigated as it would have brought to full public attention the embarrassing actions of the PPD. When Index-Z was contacted by officials about settling the rather embarrassing matter, Index-Z was quite magnanimous, and apologised for his own behaviour. Which won him back some small public favour; now as a fully registered public hero, Index-Z can fight crime without any distraction.
A new Job
It started off slowly at first, Index-Z put a few extra criminals in hospital than he really needed to, or a criminal would be tied in front of a PPD station with shattered bones. But it soon became apparent that Index-Z was becoming a lot more brutal. It was during a raid on a superdine lab alongside a PPD SWAT team that events came to a head. While the SWAT team had seen a lot of bad things in their job, watching Index-Z virtually obliterate members of the Troll gang was one of the most gruesome things they had ever seen. It got so bad that Index-Z almost lashed out at the SWAT team when they tried to calm him down.
Realising that he was having a problem, Index-Z discovered that one of the perks of a licenced hero is that you can see a psychiatrist. After being assured patient/doctor confidentiality he gave her an abridged version of his origin story and his reasoning behind fighting crime. He was also pressed upon his more violent behaviour and the rumours that he robs the criminals he fights. Index-Z saw no problem in taking a few dollars from a mobster in order to buy lunch. It was there that the breakthrough was found. The psychiatrist reasoned Index-Z’s “Zeta persona” was the cause of his recent violent behaviour. That Index-Z had become a non-stop crime-fighter and forgot about Martin Chronos. In short: Index-Z needed to be Martin Chronos more often. He also needed to find a better way of paying the bills than stealing from criminals. He also needed to interact with people more often.
The perfect solution was found. After experimentation with his abilities, Martin discovered that it wasn’t just martial-artists that he had the knowledge of, but virtually every other profession as well, including professions such as plumbing, engineering, cooking and bartending. So after approaching DJ Zero of Pocket-D, he agreed to hire Index-Z as a part-time bartender. And so it came to pass that almost every night for a period of time Index-Z is behind a bar in Pocket-D serving drinks, sandwiches and conversation for a minimal price. The changes in Index-Z was miraculous, he was a much nicer crime-fighter, even cracking jokes from time to time, and was an altogether much friendlier person.
The Final Days of Index-Z: Part 1
Personality
It has been remarked by several acquaintances and contacts of Index-Z that he is a rather mercurial person. At times Index-Z is completely and utterly serious and unrelenting, and although he will never, ever break his no killing rule, he can be incredibly violent. But at other times, the original personality of Martin Chronos comes to light, the warm, friendly soul, an easy-going person who thinks the world would be a better place if people smiled more often. Martin believes that the Codex programming is responsible for his “Zeta persona” and it gives him yet another reason to chase after the criminals of the Codex facility. But above all of that, no matter what Index-Z is feeling at the time, the knowledge and memories of dozens of martial arts masters has instilled a strong sense of honour in him, which he speculates is a contributing factor to his incredible willpower. Lately however, Index-Z has been struggling with his dual persona, as it has become harder and harder to reign in his "Zeta persona" from being even more brutal than usual.
Abilities
The researchers of ‘The Codex’ wanted to create the perfect human, designed specifically to be able to kill super-beings. To that end they downloaded many styles of martial-arts into Index-Z’s mind with the sole purpose of making him unbeatable in hand-to-hand combat.
After extensive meditation Index-Z has determined that he has the knowledge of fifteen hand-to-hand martial arts masters. Each martial artist was a master of a different style of hand-to-hand martial arts:
• Wushu
• Karate
• Jeet Kune Do
• Krav Maga
• Capoeira
• Jiu-Jitsu
• Tae Kwon Do
• Muay Thai
• Wing Chun
• Tai Chi
• Command Sambo
• Aikido
• Judo
• Savate
• Pencak Silat
Alongside these martial styles was the weapon’s style Escrima, which lends to Index-Z’s skill with knives (which was further downloaded from the knowledge of an expert in knife-fighting).
“Alone, any one of these styles can be deadly. Together they could make a man unstoppable even to super-beings.” That was what was touted by the scientist who devised these styles for download into Index-Z’s mind. Unfortunately, there were several complications to this. These styles were developed in completely different times by completely different people and quite normally completely different countries, they were never meant to be mixed together. This is still an up-hill struggle for Index-Z to figure out a way of combining these martial-arts together. For some of the styles it is easy: Jeet Kune Do is derived from Wing Chun, and so these styles form together easily, the same stands for Judo and Jiu-Jitsu. However blending in styles such as Tai Chi (The aggressive style, not the exercise techniques) and Pencak Silat is not so easy. Eventually Index-Z orders the styles in “collections” that fit together:
• Wushu, Karate, Tai Chi, Aikido.
• Jeet Kune Do, Wing Chun.
• Tae Kwon Do, Capoeira
• Jiu-Jitsu, Command Sambo, Judo.
• Muay Thai, Savate.
• Krav Maga, Pencak Silat.
These styles grouped together allow Index-Z to fight with more ease and reduce the amount of conflicts in his mind. But Martial-Arts are not the only thing that was downloaded into Index-Z. The tactics and strategies of many successful military commanders were also included, making Index-Z a superb tactician. Any knowledge that would make Index-Z a better fighter was implanted into his mind, from Escape Artistry, to Parkour, from fire-arm training, to how to survive in any environment be it the desert or in a rain forest.
However, despite all of these abilities, Index-Z restricts himself on all of them. The reason being that virtually every single skill implanted into his mind was designed for the sole purpose of killing; and that is one thing that he will never do. So when in combat, Index-Z will still sometimes hesitate in order to fight down the urge to use killing techniques on his opponent.
