Off-Beat/History
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
Vivienne Everett heard those very words fall from the man that she'd allowed her daughter to marry once upon a time and this is, perhaps, where Rocky's small tale begins. When Alexander Donovan and Anastasia Donovan decided that Rocky would be a child that they kept, it was because they were not financially ready to have a child. Rocky was a mistake from the beginning, an unplanned pregnancy, but it was Vivienne who talked her daughter into keeping the baby.. much to Alexander's disapproval. Because Anastasia did not work, he already had it exceptionally hard providing for the woman he wanted to marry. He was in and out of jobs, and yet somehow he eventually managed to warm up to the idea of having a son, but the loss of his wife during the delivery process shattered those ideals to nothing. The day that Rocky was born seemed to change so much about the 'good man' Alexander was thought to be, as Rocky's birth resulted in Anastasia's untimely passing, and it also signaled his father refusing to parent a motherless child or a boy that he believed killed his wife. To say the least, as a baby he didn't realize that his existence would spur tragedy, but it was his grandmother, Vivienne, that offered to shoulder the responsibility of raising this young boy - despite the fact that she was an aging woman who shouldnt've had that responsibility. Family values refused to allow her to see her grandson put up for adoption, however, and as Rpcky's grandmother, she instantly received custody of the young boy before his life truly began to spiral out of control and into the introduction of foster care.
Plymouth, Massachusetts was the small town that held his first beginnings, as that was where Vivienne lived alone - a late widow who very well seen and had ties to Plymouth's beginnings in her earlier years growing up. It was a family town, one that she felt the safest in, and though none of her family was left... she was a known woman, which allowed her a great deal of help when it came to caring for her grandson. As a young boy, so full of life and energy, one wouldnt've expected his grandmother to have faced what she did when his birth occurred. He naturally seemed to hold a joie de vivre when it came to life in general. As a toddler, he didn't know the meaning of it, but he was all smiles and even Vivienne could see that he was someone that people would come to naturally love as his energy seemed to slip into even her which often made her proud to have decided to take him in. She was always receiving help from neighbors with the little things when it came to raising him. He was a boy who, by nature, got his ideals of being a people person from his grandmother after all. Popularity came natural to him, because from a toddler.. he was exposed to kids his age. Adults who often babysat him, fed him, pampered him, and helped with some of the learning that his grandmother didn't have time for or even understand anymore herself. As the only child, it became very easy for him to get mostly anything that he wanted growing up. It eventually got to a point, however, where Vivienne had to turn away people as her small countryside home in the outskirts of Plymouth could no longer storage what Rocky was quickly growing out of over the years.
Rocky was a boy who moved at an increasingly fast pace growing up. By seven months old, he was crawling. By eight months, he was climbing to stand with support and taking his first steps. From the moment that he was able to form full fledged words, he was naturally asking questions left and right about the goings-on of things around him. Why did this do that, who was that, Grandma this. He was quite curious, and during his first years of school this made him very attentive to the things that he learned. Vivienne came to discover this inquisitive nature early on, and so she'd learn to have an answer ready for everything. Most commonly those questions she knew he should not have answers to were answered in ways that made him not want to ask again. But primarily she knew that he was taken with the world around him. He was quite the adventurous boy, something that attributed to his growth in Plymouth as he aged. Sadly, as he aged however, so did she and there were things that she was no longer able to do around their small household. So from the tender age of eight and on, Rocky was there at his grandmothers side lending a helping hand. The value of hard work came to him in the earliest parts of his life, which would have shaped his personality had he not began to grow curious about a few things in his life. Such as why he was being raised by his grandmother, and why all of the other kids at school held a mother and father... and he held none. The questions started subtly when he'd ask Vivienne, but as his mind matured they became more outright than they ever were. He wanted to know - what happened to his own parents.
Vivienne had long since thought of a way to dress the tale of his parents up should Rocky ever grow curious about it, but she never wanted to lie to him. What she intended was to tell him the truth in a manner that didn't hit him as hard for his age. And so she did. She told him that he was a miracle child that his mother chose to save in lieu of her own life, and that his father could not handle the stress of loss and so chose to let her care for him instead. Rocky never questioned why his father never called or tried to contact them, but instead just chose to accept the fact that maybe he was busy. His naive mind of eight years old never really thought past that. Over the course of the next year or so, Rocky watched his grandmother become ailing due to lung cancer - a habit in which she'd gotten from smoking. He never really recognized that she'd done it out of habit when she stepped outside onto their porch. While she never told him this was the cause, he merely knew that the stresses of raising him were becoming too tough for her. So in his mindset that slowly began to turn rebellious, he decided that he would run away. On his twelfth birthday while she slept, he stole one of her credit cards and packed a back pack. The only thing he'd left was a note that said he was sorry for stressing her so, and that she wouldn't have to worry about him anymore because he was going to find his father. That he loved her and thanked her for everything. While she slept he snuck the note onto her night stand, never realizing that his very last night with his grandmother was her last night altogether, for she never woke to read the words he'd written.
With a handful of notes, Rocky bought himself a train ticket to Boston - the place where his grandmother last told him that his father was located and working. He'd had a single letter that she'd written to him but never sent, and so he knew the address. Over the years, ever since his mind developed with the sudden spur of adolescence, the simple understanding for why his father was not a father turned into a mild disgust that bordered on hate. So he wanted to know the reason why the man had left him behind. His headstrong nature at this point in his life seemed to be a gene spurred by his father, which made their first meeting rather harsh. Rocky arrived at his father's small apartment home on the south side of Boston, in a not so great neighborhood. Rocky was able to see from the look of the small, two bedroom apartment that his father was living comfortably... but he was clearly a drunk. After forcing himself in, and calling the man 'Dad', Alexander clearly had a state of shock sink into him. He drank because he felt guilt he said, guilt for not being a man to take care of him. The excuses that every young boy gets for the most part, but in some way Rocky wanted to believe him. He was told that he didn't want to take him from his grandmother because he knew that she was dying long before Rocky did. At the discovery that her time was drawing to a close, he felt compelled to want to check on her. It was only when he tried to phone that she didn't answer, and so he phoned a neighbor instead... and he learned that he was too late. Vivienne had passed away in her sleep.
This saddened him a great deal, and while he tried not to show it in front of his father.. it only translated into anger towards the man. Deciding that he would force himself into this mans life, they'd both decided that attending school was a must and so Rocky was registered into the local high school for his freshman year. His time in high school was exciting, as he spent a great deal of his time with friends he'd developed - the sort of friends that his grandmother had never permitted him to make. With his father doing very little to reign him in, preferring the company of a bottle to that of his son, Rocky was permitted to involve himself in all manner of questionable activities - and that he did. From partying to fighting to everything in between, he got himself into all manner of trouble. This in itself didn't help the strain that the relationship he and his father were developing as the two of them were constantly at odds. As his father was a man that was never around, it was naturally hard for a boy like Rocky to respect him or the poor decisions he'd been making to use drinking as a crutch to pull away from everything that was around him. When Rocky was not partying with his friends, it was easy to see that his father was more prone to just slipping in from his day of work and holing himself inn his bedroom with a bottle of liquor until he passed out. If he wasn't immediately vanishing to wallow in his own self pity, he was constantly starting fights with his son about various things. How late he chose to come in, his school work or the phone call from his school that he'd heard the message too. Alexander was trying to do the right thing, but the right thing could not be accompanied by inebriation.
It took Rocky some time to put the death of his grandmother behind him. he was old enough to understand death for what it really was, and this woman had been the only mother figure he knew. However, the longer that he stayed with his father was the more that a great deal of his mindset began to shift dramatically. There was an inkling of care in his life that he tried desperately to cling onto, but like any young man with more growth required, his mannerisms became a little more rebellious and a lot more like his father. Partying with his friends nearly landed him in multiple cases of expulsion from school, which nearly cost him his education. What simply got him through was the realization that if he failed at something so simple, Vivienne would have likely not forgiven him in the afterlife, as she was rather adamant about his education when he was living in Plymouth. She was a great deal of his drive to actually do right, and so during his final few years he worked to keep his grades turned around and on a level that would give him the opportunity to actually make something of himself. He worked hard to see his school years end on a high note, finding an odd sort of balance between having fun and doing what he was supposed to, Rocky was able to pull off a moderately decent GPA that would have gained him acceptance into most schools of his choosing - but his father had other things in mind. Having been seeing a woman without his son's knowledge, the announcement that his father would be getting re-married came as something of a shock to Rocky. To make matters worse, the bride, a horrid woman by the name of Elena, wanted nothing to do with the boy. She whispered in his father's ear, worked her magic, and before long, his father was casting him aside yet again.
While things essentially set to the way they had been prior to his arrival in Boston, it became clear that it was time for Rocky to move on with his life. Having always harboured a love for heroes, particularly the Freedom Phalanx and their associates, the choice to travel to Paragon City was an easy one. Though lacking any powers of his own, the temptation of bearing witness to his heroes' feats firsthand was not one that he could easily ignore, despite how dangerous the city was fabled to be. Further, there was some part of him, however deeply buried, that begged him to don a mask of his own - to take up a weapon and crack some heads, despite his lack of powers. Manticore had done it, after all. Why couldn't he? It was these joint thoughts that brought him to Paragon and into the employ of a pizza delivery service. While his apartment was horrid and he was mugged three times and beaten with a toaster within his first week in the city, knowing that he was so near his heroes made it all worth it. What were a few cuts and bruises when compared to seeing his idols firsthand?
It seemed as if everything in his life began to change once again when he found himself caught in the midst of a bank heist. Naturally, he didn't see the need in over-reacting; he'd experienced far worse, and he was certain some hero or another would save the day before long. It was purely instinctual when he donned his headphones, attempting to lose himself in his music until his saviour arrived. However, something changed in him. While music had done nothing more than relieve him of stress and distract him from his immediate problems, it empowered him as he sat there, increased his speed exponentially. Power coursed through him, fuelled by his music. In a flash, everything had changed - he had gone from helpless bystander to empowered superhuman - and though his gift was far less impressive than the heroes he idolized, it was enough. Being able to personally fight 'evil' had been nothing but a fantasy, and while he managed to crack some heads and protect his fellow victims from the gun-toting maniacs that sought to rob the bank, it took some time for him to fully grasp the concept that he was something more than human. He was changing, and he could feel it in a lot of ways. But, unlike the ignorant and blinded human being he was supposed to be, he didn't try to ignore his gift - rather he put quite a bit of thought into it, exploring what he could do, learning how his abilities worked. Upon discovering that he could do innumerable things depending on the music that he happened to be listening to, the decision to become a fully-fledged hero in his own right was an easy one. After spending a few months training himself in self-defence, creating his own costume, and splurging a bit on a metal staff that he affectionately dubbed 'Clarisse', he applied for his licence, and took to the streets as the costumed crime-fighter, 'Off-Beat.'
Rocky hasn't really began to understand what his power entails, but he knows that, in time, he'll fully grasp his capabilities. Everyday brings about new questions that he feels compelled to ask, and yet there's really no distinctive answer to really accommodate this and very few people that can help him out. However, with every thug that he finds himself coming to fight, he feels as if there's a little piece of the overall puzzle that makes some sort of sense. People out there clearly need the power that has been awakened within him, and he simply refuses to ignore his 'calling', such as it is. Having fought alongside innumerable heroes and finding a team that he might just be able to devote himself to, he's almost inclined to believe that he's making a name for himself in Paragon City - but only time will tell for sure.
Last Updated: 8/19/2012
