Ozell One/Project: Truth
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
Preface
While not really an 'adventure' per se, expansion of Ozell's backstory beyond his original two-line concept led to his tale beginning well before he existed. The details on Project: Truth and what became of it come mostly from his father's confession at the end of Two Means, One End, but while Ozell wasn't ever part of it, the project has strong bearing on Ozell's life.
The Story
Project: Truth was the codename for a joint venture in the mid-70s by the US Government and a private scientific firm (whose identity to this day remains a mystery), with the intent to create psychically gifted counterintelligence agents who could gain information simply by looking into their enemies' minds. While the firm's first prototypes delivered results, government agents planted within began reporting back financial inconsistencies and questionable handling of so-called 'top secret' info, and the US eventually chose to withdraw its involvement and support from the project. Project: Truth's director, Mark Welland, indignant over the rejection by the government and responsible for the several dozen living prototypes who were now without a purpose, gave the order he thought would take care of both problems nicely: Kill them all.
Knowing subtlety was lost on psychics, the firm's private soldiers intended to take them head-on. Being mind-readers and not fighters, the struggle was over in a matter of minutes; when the smoke cleared, all that was left was to count the bodies, very few of which remained intact. Anyone who saw the mess that remained of Project: Truth would agree that there was no way any of the psychics could have survived such a bloodbath.
One of them saw it coming, and it would be eight years before Mark Welland would discover that he'd slipped away.
The escapee put his talents to full use. Naming himself Rophyon Hunt, he used his psychic power to blend into society as nothing out of the ordinary. It was easy, but paranoia and isolation ate away at him as the years went by- in his weakness, he found a lover in Holly Ryan, a young and kind-hearted Louisiana woman who accepted him for what he was. His carelessness led to her conception- Holly died while delivering two identical twin boys who, to his horror, had the exact same pale skin and blank eyes as him. Rophyon knew that no amount of psychic power could charm away the presence of two freak children and Holly's death, but he wasn't willing to abandon them. Naming the boys Alex and Adrian, he packed up again and fled.
Making it all the way to Arizona before realizing that two infants made for awful travelling companions, Rophyon managed to find work as the janitor of a half-way-house, where Alex and Adrian were brought up by the Christian priest who ran the place, and the criminals he looked after (he thought child rearing would make for good rehab). Inevitably, the men who got out told their friends about 'the pale-eyed twins', who told their friends, who told theirs. It took four years, but the word eventually spread to Mark Welland himself- and he was all too eager to take care of the unfinished business.
Rophyon had taken the boys camping when Welland's men attacked. Rophyon sensing danger allowed them a head start, but not before a lucky shot pierced Adrian's leg, leaving him bleeding with a bad limp. When Welland grew frustrated and released hunting dogs on their trail, Rophyon knew all three would be lost if Adrian's limp continued to slow them down. Shooting him in the heart and using his power to bring what memories of Adrian's he could into the mind of his brother Alex, he left him to die. The sacrifice was in vain, though, and the two were caught the next morning. It was then that Mark Welland, standing over the beaten and exhausted body of the man who'd been a thorn in his side for years, had a change of heart: killing Rophyon would be letting him off easy. He could do worse, he thought. He could do much worse. Taking them back to the venture he now ran in Paragon City, Equinox Laboratories, he locked Rophyon away in the basement and proceeded to brainwash Alex for his own ends. 'His own ends' would turn out to be Ozell One.
With concious memory removed, the seven-year-old Alex was re-named Ozell One and shown to Paragon as "an artificial hero created young, who will grow to love the city he is to protect". Over the years, Mark Welland coached him, trained him, kept him close by his side- all while gloating to Rophyon over how well his son was turning out without him. When Alex turned seventeen, Welland thought him ready to get his hero license. The day in August of 2006 he planned to take Alex to city hall to get registered, however, was also the day Crey had been hired to kill him.
Pulling out of the parking lot in one of the Equinox company vans, Alex and Mark Welland were slammed side-on by a black SUV, causing Alex a hard hit to the head and severely injuring his supposed mentor. The ambulance that arrived almost on cue after that was, too, a Crey fraud. Luring the pair in, they finished Welland off; not having planned for Alex's presence, they decided he'd make a good test subject, and sped off into the night. Alex had faith the lab would send help, but it wasn't to be. Appointed to take Welland's place was Bryce Masters, a notorious career CEO who decided that one artificial human was as good as any other; rather than waste resources tracking down and retrieving him, he instead opted for a new hero to simply be cloned, leaving Alex to fend for himself. He at least released Rophyon from his imprisonment and gave him a fair sum of hush money for his ordeal, but after ten years in solitary confinement, Rophyon didn't seem to care one way or another for his sons' fates.
Merely told he'd "lost his memory in a car accident", the new Ozell One was given a one-month crash course on everything a hero ought to know- he was then let loose in Paragon City to work as a hero-for-hire, unaware of the massive conspiracy that rested on his shoulders...
That's that. You can go on back to the main page if you like.
