Mirke City Heroes League
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
Contents |
Introduction
The straightforwardly-named Mirke City Heroes League is a rather loose confederation of super-powered heroes native to the mid-sized metropolis of Mirke City, Delaware. Linked by their common citizenship and some other factors, these superheroes use their abilities in a fight to preserve their fading home town against the criminal elements that threaten to overrun it. Their personalities, methods, and motivations run the gamut, from noble, altruistic crusaders to borderline homicidal maniacs. These differences often cause high levels of friction and even dangerous division between the members - but to this point, at least, their devotion to defending peace and justice has managed to keep them all on the same team.
Brief History
Mirke City, like many other industrial cities of moderate size (such as Flint, Michigan) suffered from serious economic degradation throughout the 1970's and 80's. As heavy industries began to fail and the population began to migrate away, opportunistic and lawless elements made their way into the fabric of Mirke's seamy underbelly. The city's slow downward spiral was only hastened as every individual negative element grew worse, and Mirke City was in danger of turning into an irretrievable cesspool of organized crime.
One individual realized almost immediately what was coming, and was determined to take steps to keep the streets safe. Michael Stanbridge was the recently-fired ex-Chief of Police, a victim of the sudden initial wave of corruption that overtook the MCPD. Unwilling to simply sit idly by and let his beloved police department be subverted, he embarked on a do-or-die mission to take the battle underground. Secretly recruiting other recently-cashiered MCPD officers, Stanbridge formed a small army of improvised crimefighters. Calling themselves the Underground Watch, they used their knowledge of the city's terrain, the recent emasculation of the regular police force, and no small amount of ruthlessness to wage a shadow war against their criminal foes. Released from the bounds of procedure and due process, the Underground Watch were successful at hindering, but not preventing, the operations of the gangs in Mirke City.
Being normal men equipped with nothing more than standard police gear, however, the Underground Watch was slowly ground out of existence. As time passed, their casualties mounted as members were crippled, killed, lost heart, or moved away for their families' sakes. Eventually only Stanbridge was left, hunted relentlessly by his now-numerous foes. Cornered one fateful night in an abandoned industrial complex in the North Side by the soldiers of the notorious Gazzano crime family, Stanbridge was presumed killed in the ensuing gunfight between himself and the hired muscle.
Stanbridge, however, was not dead - at least not quite. His wounds contaminated by the exotic mix of chemicals and radiation emanating from the ruined complex's shattered containment units, the leader of the now-defunct Underground Watch slipped into a coma that lasted nearly a dozen years. When he awoke, he discovered that he had acquired super-human powers, and that in his absence, other heroes had taken up the fight that he and his men had started more than a decade earlier. Emboldened by these discoveries, he continued his crusade against the Gazzano empire and eventually sought out the other crimefighters in the city. After several months of feeling these people out, Stanbridge was able to convince several of them to combine their abilities under a team effort, giving rise to the Mirke City Heroes League.
Roster
Justifier
Alex Maxwell was a normal, albeit well-educated, construction worker living in Mirke City with his nephew, Peter Maxwell. Like most of the city's working-class citizens, it was difficult for Alex to support both himself and his orphaned nephew, and each day saw them both grow angrier and more frustrated by what was going on in their home. Crime was growing worse by the day, and corruption and graft threatened to make even the smallest of construction jobs unreasonably dangerous for Alex and his co-workers. A deadly accident in the heart of the city resulted in the deaths of two of Alex's close friends and the injuring of three others. Finally fed up, Alex began roaming the streets at night with several of his co-workers, getting into fights with gangs of local thugs. One night, after a particularly dangerous brawl, he found himself separated from his friends and on the run from several police units. Escaping into the abandoned restricted research labs in the southern hills, Alex discovered a half-buried tunnel entrance. Hiding there for several hours, he eventually made his way back home, but was determined to return and investigate the location again later.
Several nights a week for the next several months, Alex managed to enter the tunnel system at will, and eventually succeeded in mapping a significant portion of the dilapidated complex. Driven by little more than curiosity, Alex was totally unprepared for what he finally found. For whatever reason, the underground labs still contained a significant array of machinery and computer systems, apparently the heart of a military-grade R&D facility. Eager to discover whatever secrets the lab might still possess, Alex quietly recruited his friend, Douglas Fairbanks, an ex-military engineer, to help him gain access to the broken-down databanks within the tunnels. Within a month they had discovered the plans to fabricate a suit of armor unlike any either of them had ever seen before. Working in secret, they managed to restore basic functionality to some of the main lab's equipment, but were unable to do more than that. Accepting that there was nothing more they could do in the secret facility and still determined to get some use out of it, Alex and Doug modified some of the bunker's abandoned military gear for vigilante work.
For another year Alex learned the ropes of being a costumed crimefighter, putting his training as an ex-Marine to work as a foundation - but learning how to jump off of buildings was tough to master, to say the least. Looking through old newspapers, he learned of the existence of the Underground Watch and the death of its leader nearly twelve years earlier. Determined to carry on the fight, he redoubled his efforts both inside and outside the hidden bunker. On the first anniversary of his first nightly foray as a crimefighter, he returned to the bunker to find it occupied by a well-dressed older gentleman and a number of heavily-armed security guards. The man introduced himself as David Marcus Holmes - a multi-billionaire who had purchased the dilapidated bunker from its military developers. Aware of the technology still hidden inside and the potential it represented, Holmes had waited until the right individual had located and entered the lab on their own. For reasons of his own, Holmes wanted to use his 'acquired' technology to establish a native citizen as a superhero in Mirke City, and he believed that Alex was the prime candidate. While Alex was not thrilled about the idea of dancing to someone else's tune in crimefighting terms, he was willing to do it in exchange for access to the bunker and its technology.
With a stipend from Holmes Industries, Alex, his friend Douglas, and his nephew Peter began to use the newly-refurbished bunker as a base, which was soon home to a suit of experimental powered battle armor. Armed with the battlesuit and its high-tech weaponry, Alex cast aside his improvised vigilante persona and re-emerged on the streets of Mirke City as the Justifier. Soon the now super-powered ex-Marine was the bane of the city's criminal element, and in the space of several months he had run across a number of other superheroes. When his personal hero, Silent Shield, resurfaced two years later, Justifier was the first hero to seek him out, and the relationships he had forged with the other heroes were instrumental in convincing them all to join Silent Shield's call for an official city superhero group.
Omega Nova
Young Noah Johnston's story was, sadly, the same as thousands of other unfortunate souls native to Mirke City. When the city's economy collapsed, his family was one of those unwilling or unable to escape to greener pastures. In the Johnstons' case, it was the fact that Noah's two maternal grandparents were living in a local nursing home and had nowhere else to go. Within two years, the home folded, forcing the Johnstons to bring the two elderly relatives into their now-crowded apartment. Two years after that, with both parents unemployed, all five of the Johnstons were evicted. The ruthless conditions prevalent in Mirke City left no recourse for the poor or elderly, and within another two years, all four of Noah's adult relatives had passed away. In the space of six years, Noah had seen his entire life collapse into dust, and at the age of twelve, he was out on the street, homeless and alone.
It was something of a minor miracle that he survived longer than a week. Fortunately, he was discovered by a group of older male vagrants in an alley and taken in; despite their circumstances, they were hardly willing to let a twelve year-old boy go wandering around alone. For four years Noah lived a meager existence on the city streets with his 'uncles'; men who survived off of a combination of charity, odd jobs, performing games of chance, smuggling, and petty theft. Noah's only education consisted of whatever skills and knowledge his caretakers possessed to impart to him, but he was a smart boy and a fast learner, and he soon became instrumental in many of the older men's schemes.
One day when he was sixteen, Noah was scavenging in an adjoining alley and came across an odd, green-colored rock lying beneath a dumpster. Despite the cold weather, the stone was warm to the touch and oddly symmetrical. Unsure as to what it could be, but guessing that it might be worth money to somebody, Noah slipped the stone into his coat pocket and resumed his scavenging. He forgot about the strange stone until he returned to the vagrants' alley-camp with a box of assorted looted odds and ends. As one of the men lifted a beaten-up radio out of the box, it suddenly sprang to life, despite having no batteries in it. Puzzled and amazed, the men tried to figure out what was making the broken-down appliance play. When Noah felt a strange heat emanating from his coat pocket, he realized that the stone was somehow causing it. When he reached into his pocket and grabbed the rock, the radio stopped, just as quickly as it had begun.
Noah hadn't the slightest clue as to what the rock was or how it worked, but he was beginning to come up with a good idea of what it might be able to do. Not wanting to lose this newfound power that he had acquired, he told none of his 'uncles' about the rock, instead keeping it a secret. For the next four years, he was able to surreptitiously 'activate' the stone's mysterious energy at key moments, using it to activate or deactivate electrical devices that the group needed to operate - or bypass. In the winter, he was able to channel the unusual heat from the stone into the surrounding air, keeping the alley slightly above freezing during the coldest nights and keeping most of the group alive.
When Noah was twenty-one, a newcomer in the group began to get suspicious of Noah's strange 'abilities'. Harvey Slayne was a thoroughly disreputable character, a down and out thug of a man who had injected himself into the group by virtue of his criminal record and muscle. Though no one really liked him, times were becoming increasingly desperate and the group needed all the muscle they could get. Being the predator he was, Slayne picked out Noah as one of the most valuable, if not easiest, targets, and slowly went to work on breaking the young man down.
One night several months later, Noah was out alone on another scavenging trip when Slayne followed and jumped him. Despite his best efforts, Noah was quickly overpowered by the older man's savage strength, and Slayne, greedily searching the dazed and bloodied youth, found the stone. Slayne turned the rock over in his hands, trying to figure it out. As he closed his fist around it, however, something went very wrong. As Noah watched in horrified fascination, Harvey Slayne burst into flames, and in a matter of seconds was reduced to a smoking pile of embers.
When Noah finished retching and finally got up the nerve to go digging through Slayne's charred remains with an old broom handle, he found the rock lying in the midst of them. The intense heat had burned away what must have been the outer layers of the stone, and it now appeared not as a rock, but as a smooth, dull green jewel. Digging it out and gingerly prodding it with his fingers, Noah realized to his amazement that it was perfectly cool to the touch, showing no signs of having been at the center of a brief but raging inferno. Holding it in his hands, he realized that the stone was making a noise that he had never heard it making before. As he listened to the sound, it slowly gained coherence until it formed a strange song inside his mind. The stone, whatever it was, seemed alive.
Though Noah could only piece together small bits of information, he was able to learn that the stone was a form of intelligent weapon, an alien artifact once utilized by a group of special soldiers that, in human terms, were called Novas. Where there had once been thousands of these stones in existence, the stone in Noah's possession was of the belief that there were no others like it remaining. As far as the stone was concerned, Noah was the last wielder of these stones, the last of the Novas. The stone had acted to defend itself and Noah from Slayne's actions, having bonded to Noah after so many years spent in contact with him.
Knowing that he could not simply return to his group, Noah spent the next several weeks drifting from one homeless shelter to another as the Artifact filled his sharp but uneducated mind with information. Whenever he slept, his dreams came to him as lessons on biology, physics, chemistry, astronomy, medicine, astrophysics, thermodynamics, tactics, hand to hand combat, and a myriad of others. The Artifact was training his mind, providing him with the knowledge he would need for the task ahead. His malnourished and emaciated body was a different matter, however, and in order to gain the required remedies for that, Noah would need money - something hard to come by in Mirke City.
The Artifact, knowing that there was nothing suitable in the city for even Noah's now well-trained mind, took a different approach: it prodded Noah to make contact with the city's heroes. By this time, the Justifier and Hornet were already operating as a coordinated unit, and while neither of them were particularly well-off financially, the Artifact deduced that they must have some means of support in place that might be of benefit to its host. Over the course of those first weeks, the Artifact analyzed sightings of the two heroes and was able to reason out a rough approximation of their patrol routes; then it was a simple matter of directing Noah to a place where one of them would run into him. Sure enough, Noah encountered the Justifier battling a gang of bank robbers in the street. When he stepped in to help, a quick demonstration of the energy powers the Artifact provided him with was enough to alert the Justifier that there was a new potential hero on the stage.
Both heroes took it upon themselves to take care of the young man, seeing to it that he received proper medical treatment, a warm place to sleep, and food to eat. They also undertook Noah's physical training, helping him to build up the stamina and strength that he had lacked for so many years. Through Justifier's patron Mr. Holmes, they arranged for Noah to get a job as a researcher with one of the wealthy industrialist's R&D labs. After about six months, Noah had designed and built a special armored suit that served as a receptacle for the Artifact, allowing him to properly harness and channel its energy-based powers and use them in battle. Using the information that the Artifact had given to him, Noah had become the (apparent) last of the Nova warriors, and therefore made the decision to call himself Omega Nova.
Hornet
Young, wiry, and fast - physically, mentally, and verbally - the superhero known as Hornet is often regarded as the 'heart' of the team. The second current member of the Mirke City Heroes League to be encountered by the Justifier, he takes nothing seriously - not even himself - except for the work that he and his super-powered compatriots are doing. His uncanny ability to simultaneously fight and crack jokes while remaining single-mindedly focused on the mission at hand sometimes irks the other members of the team, but at the end of the day, he never visibly allows anything to bother him.
Bill Nichols was a hotshot pilot flying mini-jets for the Eastern Circuit Air Racing League. A self-proclaimed adrenaline junkie, he spent his spare time skydiving and bungie jumping, and participated in illegal drag races in the streets as frequently as in the air. As the months passed, he found himself drawn further and further into the underground circuits, a shadowy world of underhanded drug deals and vice rackets. Desperate to find a way out but unable to sate his addiction to thrills, Bill sank deeper into the dangerous culture of the streets, always barely able to keep his secret from being discovered by his managers in the Air Racing League. In Mirke City, however, everything was a potential market for the predatory Gazzanos, and it didn't take them long to discover what the hotshot young racing star was doing with his free time. They attempted to blackmail Bill into working as a runner and drug smuggler for them on the underground racing circuit, threatening to expose his addiction and activities to the League unless he cooperated.
Bill blew them off, mainly because he had already gone to his friend, mentor, manager, crew chief, and all around butt-kicker, Jeff Williams, and confessed all. Williams was understandably livid, and there was little that Bill could do but apologize. The news that the Gazzanos would undoubtedly soon try to take him out focused the two pair beyond their anger and grief, thankfully, and soon the two hatched a plot to fake Bill's death and hopefully salvage the careers of at least his crew. Their plan to have Bill's plane crash during a race was a highly dangerous, highly illegal endeavor to begin with - one that became downright lethal when the Gazzanos decided to take their own hand in killing off the disobedient pilot. In a complicated plan involving sabotaged cameras, a triggered malfunction and a genuine remote-controlled crash into the harbor, the crucial element involved Bill being able to eject in the few brief instants during which his jet would be out of sight. A simple contract by the Gazzanos led to the malfunction of Bill's ejector seat, and despite Jeff's desperate efforts, he found himself slamming into the surface of the water at shattering speed.
Someone apparently wasn't eager to see their favorite delinquent air-racer end up as fish food, however, because something strange erupted from the confines of his swiftly flooding cockpit and enveloped Bill as he struggled to free himself. In a doubly panicked state, Bill swiftly tore loose from his restraints and busted through the canopy in the blink of an eye, then burst to the surface in a matter of seconds. Swimming to shore, Bill collapsed beneath an abandoned wooden jetty and lost consciousness. Awakening several hours later, it dawned on him just what had happened, and as he glanced down at himself, he realized that he was wearing more than just the tattered remains of his flight suit. The strange something that had enveloped him in his cockpit had somehow merged with it, covering him from head to toe in a skintight suit of strange webbed material. Realizing that he was probably presumed dead and that no one would know who he was while wearing the suit, Bill took the opportunity to hide out.
After many years spent on the run, Bill gradually learned that the mysterious suit was far more than it seemed. Although he still has no idea what it is, how it works, or where it came from, he does know what it can let him do. It seems to contain a network of kinetic amplifiers, energy absorbers, and shock reducers, allowing him to move and react faster, lift and push better, and hit harder, all without suffering injury from these superhuman activities. It also mitigates the impact of physical and energy impacts against it, thus keeping the otherwise non-super-powered hero from getting killed from any one attack. The suit absorbs stray energy from the surrounding area or from Bill's own movement, which he can then channel through the suit, creating a localized defensive shield, or into his gloves, which contain a number of kinetic bolt emitters, allowing him to direct a withering hail of fire against distant foes.
Finding himself free from the trappings of his old life seemed to have more positive than negative impact on Bill Nichols, despite the difficulties involved in staying fed as a dead man. The good thing about being nameless and faceless in a place as corrupt as Mirke City is that there are always people willing to take advantage of your anonymity - especially if you appear to have super powers. Rather than become a thrall to the people who tried to kill him, however, Bill decided on a slightly different course of action. With typical spontaneity and cheerfulness, Bill presented himself as something of a 'super-powered handyman'. In exchange for a place to sleep, food to eat, and a bit of spending money, the self-styled 'Hornet' provided the citizens of the Lower Wards neighborhood with whatever services they needed, running the gamut from rescuing cats from trees to busting up the crooks who spent their days shaking down the local shopkeepers. Luckily, Hornet caught the attention of the Justifier at about the same time that he caught the attention of the Gazzanos, and together they were able to protect Hornet's home neighborhood from reprisals from the mob. The two heroes have been fast friends ever since, and Hornet was quick to join up with the Heroes League upon its founding.
Black Virus
Mysterious and deadly, the man known only as Black Virus is the most unstable and dangerous of Mirke City's vigilantes. The term 'hero' applies extremely loosely to him, and can be applied only because of his unwillingness to unleash his merciless wrath against anyone but the criminals he hunts. Even his fellow crimefighters in the Heroes League know little about him, as even his name and personal history remain an enigma, but many people consider him to be at least mildly psychotic. Hooded in his trademark black and white checkered bodysuit and trenchcoat and armed with a myriad of weapons, he has often been seen simply wading into the midst of raging gun battles, minigun in hand, seemingly impervious to bullet hits and methodically slaughtering all opposition. He delights in using specialized strains of deadly viruses to torture, interrogate, and kill his victims, and it is believed that he himself was once a victim of a bio-engineered strain. Unconfirmed reports seem to link Black Virus to highly unethical and illegal experiments conducted on psychiatric patients at the Horsehead Island Asylum nearly ten years ago. Whatever occurred in that place has undoubtedly unhinged Black Virus' mind, although it seems to have had the secondary effect of providing him with at least some manner of superhuman ability. He appears and disappears at will, cooperates with other heroes at his whim, obeys directives only when it suits him, and listens to no one. The other heroes of Mirke City have never been able to summon him or even truly rely on him, and they tend to view his appearance on the battlefield with more trepidation than enthusiasm. Despite this, Black Virus' ruthless determination and his ability to soak up and dish out damage make him a valuable, if not exactly welcome, addition whenever extreme circumstances arise.
Roadblock
Jamal Damon spent the majority of his life on the rough streets of Mirke City, trying to survive. His father, a construction worker, died in an on-the-job accident when Jamal was twelve; his mother was killed during a mugging gone bad three years later. With the city's infrastructure in ruins, Jamal fell through the gaping cracks in the crippled welfare system and found himself on his own. Despite having only a seventh-grade education and fairly well-reinforced morals, Jamal's innate intelligence enabled him to enlist in the ranks of a youth street gang, the Curb Cats. Originally intended merely as a means for its homeless young members to survive, for many years they engaged only in minor crimes, like petty theft, small con jobs, and the occasional burglary. As the core members grew older and the conditions in the city worsened, however, the Curb Cats began to expand their membership and their operations. One particular burglary, however, put them in hot water with the Gazzanos, and within two weeks several of the gang's core members had been killed in sudden, violent battles with some of the mob's heavy hitters.
Jamal was picked up by the MCPD in the chaos, and was handed over to the local FBI agents charged with investigating the Gazzano crime syndicate. With his adopted family in ruins, Jamal was convinced to turn state's evidence in return for protection. The Gazzanos, however, had even more influence in the city than the authorities did; a few sizeable bribes to his police escorts gained them knowledge of Jamal's whereabouts. They quickly found him and dragged him off to a construction site for a quick and permanent concrete bath. Unfortunately for them, the site was being used as an illegal dumping ground for a nearby scientific research center, and the pool of dark grey liquid that they thought was concrete actually wasn't. As Jamal struggled, neck-deep in what was to be his tomb, he felt a surge of strength in his wrists and ankles. The cords snapped as something expanded around his arms and legs, and he was pushed up out of the pool. Astonished, he stepped onto dry ground as a slick, clay-like material coalesced around him. The alarmed Gazzano hitters drew their guns and fired at him, but their bullets simply sank harmlessly into the hardening shell around Jamal's body. Jamal did what any former street tough in his situation would have done; pounded them.
Knowing that the Gazzanos wouldn't stop hunting him, Jamal acted fast, and went looking for heroes. As a member of a minor gang, he had heard of the local Heroes League, though neither he nor his fellow partners in crime had ever run into any of them. Jamal had long been disheartened by the direction his adopted family had taken, but was unable to simply leave his friends, especially without an alternative means to survive. It didn't take long for Justifier and Silent Shield to find him, as they kept their ears low to the ground and word of a 'rock-freak' spread quickly throughout the local criminal circles. As a member of the League, Jamal would be relatively safe from the Gazzanos, none of whom were willing to tangle openly with a group of superheroes. Jamal agreed to join the other heroes, testified in court for the FBI on a case that ultimately went nowhere, and settled into a new life. Putting his life of crime behind him, Jamal took a job as a construction worker, like his father had. Since then, Jamal has used his powers to keep his co-workers safe from mob corruption and graft, determined to prevent another accident like the one that took his father's life.
Silent Shield
Michael Stanbridge was once the leader of the Underground Watch, a group of ex-Mirke City police officers who waged a secret war against the criminal element that was beginning to take control of their city. For nearly six years they provided the city's gangs, led by the notorious Gazzano crime family, with their most difficult opposition. The constant and deadly warfare took its toll, however, and eventually the Underground Watch was defeated, its crusade ending when Stanbridge himself was gunned down in a violent battle with Gazzano soldiers in the abandoned Chemradyne Research Facility.
As he lay dying, however, Stanbridge's wounds were exposed to the exotic chemicals and residual radioactive particles emanating from a number of containment vessels that had been shattered in the battle. The combination of chemicals and radiation altered the composition of Stanbridge's blood and glandular tissues, spontaneously granting him enhanced reflexes and cellular regeneration. This process took the better part of twelve years, however, during which time the disgraced ex-police chief lay in a coma. His body was found by one of his former soldiers, Gary Stevenson, a man who had left the Watch several months prior but had returned out of a sense of guilt for abandoning his comrades in arms. Spiriting away his leader's comatose form to an isolated farmhouse on the outskirts of the city, Stevenson, a police physician, kept watch over Stanbridge while living incognito as a simple construction worker.
When Stanbridge awoke nearly twelve years after his supposedly-fatal battle, he discovered that he was in perfect health, looking no different than he had at the time of his supposed death. Though understandably confused and more than a little suspicious of his former soldier, Stevenson, Stanbridge eventually adjusted to the fact that he was not actually dead, as well as the news of having spent the previous twelve years in a coma. Upon realizing that the war between the criminals and the law-abiding citizens of Mirke City was still raging, Stanbridge was determined to continue his part in the fight. Stevenson told him that there were new heroes present in the city, many of them possessed of super-human abilities, and that they had picked up where the Underground Watch had left off, holding the line against corruption alongside the few honorable police officers still remaining.
With his enhanced speed and strength and regeneration abilities manifesting themselves, Stanbridge donned the very same battle-scarred suit of riot armor he had worn twelve years earlier. Knowing that he was the last of the Underground Watch still under arms, he restyled himself as the superhero Silent Shield. Few individuals are aware of his former identity as a police commander and urban guerrilla fighter; yet he is still regarded by the 'newer' heroes of Mirke City as something of a relic - a stolid, battle-hardened old man. As the founder and de facto leader of the Heroes League, however, he commands at least a modicum of respect from both the citizenry and his super-powered compatriots.
Silent Shield possesses enhanced strength and speed, and can regenerate from any wound within a matter of minutes. While not truly invincible, his physical strength allows him to easily carry an array of heavy defensive gear. Despite the battered appearance of his armor's exterior, it is heavily reinforced and quite resilient, as is his modified combat shield.
Alpha Strike
The hero now known as Alpha Strike once led a very different life. In fact, Samantha Dumas used to hail from the other end of the spectrum, as a hardened criminal. Known to Mirke City's criminal element as Killshot, Dumas was one of the top assassins for the ruthless Gazzano crime family. Notorious for her lethal ability to take down any target, anytime, anywhere, with a single shot, she was the go-to girl when the mafia wanted a troublemaker eliminated. Her years spent successfully doing the Gazzano's dirty work allowed her to amass a sizeable personal fortune, and she offset her bloody and merciless occupation with an extravagant nightlife. The hours between killings involved copious amounts of dancing, drinking, and sex, as well as quite a bit of cold hard cash spent on all three. Fortunately for Samantha, she enjoyed her work - after a fashion - because the only way she could manage to keep her head above water was to perform more high-paying assassinations for the mob.
Despite her penchant for putting bullets through people's skulls from a thousand yards out, in the end it was her hard-partying lifestyle that made her a liability to her employers. The Gazzanos were ruthless in their dealings, and a single weak link in any strata of their city-wide empire was viewed as a threat to their business. In Samantha's case, the potential weak link was a man named Vincent Alario. Best described as her favorite lover, Vincent was linked - however distantly - to the Velasio crime family. Despite his being little more than a low-level street manager for a man who was not even a Velasio family member, the fact that the Velasios were the Gazannos' direct rivals was immutable. When Samantha assassinated one of Vincent's top rivals as a favor to him, it was interpreted as a sign that she had crossed the line. The news that their top assassin was intimately involved with and actively killing for a man who worked for their hated enemies was too much for the Gazzanos to risk...and so the order was given.
Two separate 'car accidents' resulted in the deaths of Vincent Alario, his younger brother, his two best friends, including his boss, and his driver/bodyguard...and the severe injury of Samantha Dumas, a.k.a. Killshot. Lying immobilized and defenseless in a hospital room in Mirke City General, she was the perfect target for the cleanup team of Gazzano hitters that came to finish her off. If not for the hasty action of Elizabeth Asquith, her personal assistant and general confidant, she would have been killed. As it was, the seriously injured assassin was rushed off to a hidden safehouse in the Delaware countryside. It took all that remained of Samantha's meager fortune to get her the doctors she required, as well as keep her moving from place to place ahead of the Gazzano hitters that were hunting her. After more than a year of difficult rehabilitation, Samantha was finally well enough to begin planning her return to Mirke City. She pulled one easy job first - the assassination of Stella Antonacci-Gazzano, one of the minor members of the family. By passing off Stella's burned and mangled corpse as her own, she faked her own death; then, by impersonating Stella and stealing her identity, Samantha was able to allay suspicion long enough to accumulate the funds she needed.
With a small but substantial piece of the Gazzano fortune at her disposal and consumed by her need for revenge, Samantha set about acquiring a new arsenal of weapons. Purchasing training for skills she had never before exercised, including hand-to-hand combat, infiltration, and gymnastics, she showed a remarkable aptitude, mastering them all quickly. Despite her injuries, she demonstrated an undiminished marksmanship ability with every manner of ranged weapon. After summoning a geneticist and receiving a DNA profile, the reason for her success was discovered. Samantha had a genetic mutation that provided her with enhanced movement speed, hand-eye coordination, kinesthesia and reflexes. Realizing that she was a mutant was largely offset by the realization that she could not only remain a long-range killing machine, but a close-range combat master as well. After purchasing the most sophisticated custom-designed composite bow she could acquire, as well as a functional but sufficiently fashionable 'crimefighting outfit', Samantha returned to Mirke City. Under the new alias of 'Alpha Strike', she set about hunting the Gazzanos as she had once hunted for them.
Over the next few weeks, several members of the Gazzano crime syndicate were found murdered, all with arrow shots apparently made from improbable ranges at nigh-impossible angles. The city was thrown into full-scale chaos as the assassinations drove the Gazzanos to look for scapegoats anywhere and everywhere. Soon a gloves-off street war was raging between the Gazzanos and the Velasios, with the severely weakened Mirke City police force and others struggling to keep order. Despite her bloody and checkered history and her lust for revenge, Samantha did have a conscience. Her intent had been to destroy the people who had destroyed her old life, but when she saw the collateral damage that her single-minded crusade had generated, she began to doubt her actions. She had never wanted her war to spill over into the rest of the city, never wanted the blood of innocent people on her hands. She herself nearly became a casualty when she was found and attacked by Gazzano soldiers; fortunately, her existence was also known to a few of Mirke City's existing heroes, and she was saved from certain death by Justifier and Hornet.
Convinced by Justifier to help end the war she had inadvertently started, Alpha Strike began her journey along the straighter and not quite as narrow path. No longer an assassin, no longer a party girl, no longer even a fugitive, Samantha decided that she wanted to use her skills to protect others from the kind of scum who had nearly caused her own death. Assisted by her two superhero rescuers, Alpha Strike was able to make a name for herself as a hero. While she is still far from the most morally upright of the superheroes of Mirke City, Samantha Dumas is hardly even a shadow of her former self, and refuses to kill unless she believes it to be absolutely necessary. Although Samantha is technically officially dead, she is still wary of being targeted by the shell-shocked and paranoid Gazzano family. Her new alter ego has managed to land a job as a security specialist with one of Mirke's surviving research companies, which affords her a measure of comfort in the face of possible discovery by her enemies.
Violet Thorn
Vanessa Marceau is perhaps the only surviving magic user in all of Mirke City. As a college exchange student visiting from France in the 1950's, Vanessa hoped to study architecture and engineering at Mirke's prestigious Vanderfield University. Unfortunately, her combination of plain looks, mediocre English, introverted personality, and scholarly focus made her a particular target of a nasty clique of American college girls. In spite of all of Vanessa's effort and dedication, however, the constant bullying took its toll, and her iron focus began to waver. As her grades started to slip, she looked desperately around campus for some sort of remedy.
In her second year at Vanderfield, Vanessa met Sarah, Amelia, and Rochelle. They, like her, had once been plain and socially awkward, focused only on school, and ostracized by most everyone else on campus. When Vanessa met them, however, they were beautiful, desirable, confident, and charismatic. Rather than being popular, however, they seemed aloof, keeping their distance from the rest of the student body, as though they were above the concerns of their peers. They talked only to those they wished to, when they wanted to, dated no boys twice in a row, and asked for nothing from anyone. In spite of their aloofness, however, there were many who came to them...for the three were rumored to be uniquely connected. No one quite knew how, but those in the know on campus told tales about how the three women could provide many things for those who approached them - for the right price.
The three girls took Vanessa into their group, the induction of a new member providing a welcome diversion from the daily grind of favor-seekers and jealous rivals. Within a month, Vanessa discovered the secret of their power - the three of them were witches. The odds of them finding magical texts at a school dedicated to science, in a city devoted to manufacturing, were astronomical - yet it had happened. Within three months of being inducted into the coven, Vanessa was a completely different girl; beautiful, confident, and successful. There was another side effect of her alteration, however. While she kept up with her studies, her main focus shifted to the arcane. Unlike the other three girls, Vanessa was not content with simply dominating college life through magic. She wanted more, and she wanted it for longer.
Sarah, Amelia, and Rochelle graduated before Vanessa did, and she found herself alone on campus. Uninterested in continuing the practices of the coven on her own, she sought out professional assistance. The sorceress she finally found and convinced to teach her was a true master, skilled far beyond the mediocre level that Vanessa and her friends had achieved. Little did she know that her teacher was a member of the Circle of Thorns, and in just a few short months, she had conjured a ritual intended to strip Vanessa of her youth and transfer it to herself. As Vanessa hovered in the air, helpless, on the verge of having her soul sucked out, a team of Legacy Chain hunters arrived. Having pursued Vanessa's teacher for years, they had finally tracked her to Mirke City, and chose that exact moment to strike. When her teacher finally fell dead to the ground, however, the Legacy Chain abandoned Vanessa there, convinced that too much of the ritual had already transpired for her to survive.
Vanessa did survive, however; the magics unleashed by the dueling sorcerers had succeeded in reflecting the effects of the ritual. When Vanessa regained consciousness, she suddenly found herself aware of things that she had never seen, done, or known before. The life energy of her slain teacher and would-be killer had been transferred to her, along with all of her memories and knowledge. It took Vanessa some twenty years to sift through this new knowledge, painstakingly re-separating her life from that of the Circle spellcaster. Astonishingly, she aged hardly at all during that period, and by the time she reached her forty-fifth birthday she looked not a day over twenty-five.
Then the collapse came, as Mirke City's economy crumbled and took the rest of the city with it. Vanessa took the opportunity to escape, using her ability to travel the world and seek out new magical knowledge. When she finally returned after another twenty years, things had not improved. With her ties to her old life in France gone, and her center of magical energy focused on the few ley lines that passed through the city, Vanessa had little choice but to stay - Mirke City was the only home she had left. She remained cautious and aloof as the other heroes in the city began to emerge, but once they began to organize into a single unit, Vanessa decided to come out of hiding, offering her expertise as an expert practitioner of the magical arts. She has long since mastered the art of using energy to slow, even reverse her own aging process at times, keeping herself in a state of physical youth while continuously developing her mind. With the possible exception of Sister Psyche, she is doubtless the best-looking eighty year old woman on the planet.
