Paladin Phoenix
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| |
| Wielding his signature fire sword in Croatoa | |
| The Paladin Phoenix | |
| Player: @Paladin Phoenix | |
| Origin: | Magic |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Tanker |
| Security Level: | Security Level 27 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Mark Houten |
| Known Aliases: | None |
| Species: | Human |
| Age: | 24 |
| Height: | 6' 1" |
| Weight: | 215 lbs (375 with armor) |
| Eye Color: | Brown |
| Hair Color: | Dark Brown/Black |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | Canadian/American |
| Occupation: | Full-Time Hero |
| Place of Birth: | Mississauga, Ontario, Canada |
| Base of Operations: | Lives in Paragon City |
| Marital Status: | Single, In a Relationship |
| Known Relatives: | Jennifer Houten (Mother), Patrick Houten (Father), Sean Houten (brother), Kelly Houten (sister) |
| Known Powers | |
| Firey Aura, Firey Melee, Flight, Limited Invulnerability | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Above-Average Intelligence, Computer Skills, Slightly Elevated Physical Abilities (strength, speed, etc) | |
| Equipment | |
| Carry-All Cape (magically enchanted) | |
| No additional information available. | |
The Paladin Phoenix is a hero clad in distinctive red medieval armor, wielding fire as a weapon against the various gangs and villains of Paragon City. The creator maintains that there was no specific inspiration for the character.
The Paladin Phoenix has been completely retired as a character, due to his death. I don't intend to play this character again, though I will keep him active just to reserve the name.
Contents |
Affliations
The Paladin Phoenix calls several people his friends.
The Paladin Phoenix also has one true enemy.
Supergroup: Paragon Misfits
Personality
Mark typically adopts a happy-go-lucky attitude, content to do what he feels like, or let others do what they feel like while he watches and laughs. When he is working as a hero, however, he becomes much more serious, and dedicated to the task at hand. In combat, he has been known to unleash a ferocious rage that seems out of character. He does display some leadership skills, though he prefers to shy away from such situations if he can. He is fiercely loyal to those he considers his friends.
Powers and Abilities
The Paladin Phoenix derives most, if not all, of his power from the magical armor he wears, known as the Phoenix Armor. This armor has a number of abilities.
Fire Abilities
The Phoenix Armor lives up to its name, manipulating pure elemental fire into weapons to protect the wearer. The most frequently seen weapon is a sword of flames, though it is also possible to create other effects. For example, when surrounded, the Paladin Phoenix frequently causes an explosion that damages enemies with both fire and concussive energy. Lastly, the armor can both protect and heal the wearer by manifesting powerful flames.
Invulnerability
The Phoenix Armor itself is completely invulnerable to almost all damage, preventing it from being destroyed. However, this invulnerability only encompasses the armor itself; anyone wearing the armor does receive a large degree of protection, but they can still be injured. The armor does not actually physically protect the wearer, but instead projects an invisible field of magical energy that dampens and dissipates attacks millimeters before reaching the wearer. Thus, the wearer does not need to be completely encapsulated in the armor to receive full protection.
Flight
The armor can draw in magical energy to achieve flight.
Parasitic Protection
The armor appears to employ a mystical form of theft protection. If it is worn by someone not recognized as the owner, the armor's protection is to drain the life of that individual until it is removed. This can kill the wearer if the armor is worn too long, though the wearer has full access to the armor's powers for that time period. In addition, the armor will use the energy drained to increase the strength of its powers.
Intelligence
The armor appears to possess a mind of its own. This intelligence is capable of little more than speaking through the mouth of the wearer, while effectively preventing the wearer from retaining any knowledge of such communication, or a sense of any time having passed. The armor attempts, poorly, to mask the fact that it is not the wearer.
Carry-All Cape
The cape that the Paladin Phoenix wears is not originally part of the armor, but in fact a specially designed cape that he commissioned when he finally got tired of not having any pockets. The cape seems to "absorb" objects that are put into it, transporting them to another location, and retrieving them when necessary. The Paladin Phoenix does not know where the objects are stored, but he has been assured that no one else does either. He has also been cautioned that he should not, under any circumstances, "carry" a living creature.
History
Creation
The Phoenix Armor was created hundreds of years ago by a powerful wizard at the request of a knight. The names of both are lost to the ages, and the exploits of the knight using the armor have not been not recorded. The armor itself disappeared from history as well.
Re-emergence
The Phoenix Armor was then recovered during an archaeological dig in Europe, headed up by Johnathan Trineas, a professor of medieval history at the University of Toronto, Canada. Ecstatic with his find, Trineas boxed up the armor and took it back to the university for study. Though the armor was in spectacularly good shape, it appeared to be otherwise unremarkable. Trineas noticed that there was definitely something odd about it - how else could it have survived hundreds of years embedded in rock in such good condition - and contacted a colleague in Paragon City about looking at it. The armor was packed up and Trineas escorted it to Rhode Island.
Shortly after arriving in the city, disaster struck: the Hellions, alerted to the arrival of the suit of armor, got it in their heads to steal it and find out what made it so special. They attacked the truck that was hauling the armor, injuring Trineas in the process, and made off with the crate. Johnathan, severely injured and in need of medical aid, nevertheless followed them as far as he was able before passing out, intent on recovering the armor. He was discovered by a good samaritan hero and revived, but before the hero could help further or even identify himself, Trineas resumed his attempt to recover the armor.
Sneaking into the warehouse where the Hellions had escaped to, he managed to avoid a number of the gang members and reach the crate, mostly through luck. Once there, he discovered an additional problem: the crate was easily as large as he was, and there was no way he could simply carry it out. A forklift would be too noisy, and leaving it behind was not an option. Anxious to find a solution to his problem, Trineas opened the crate, intending to remove as much of the armor as he could and figure something else out. However, a bright flash of light emanated from the crate, and when Trineas could see again, he was wearing the armor.
Unfortunately, the light had attracted the Hellions, who moved quickly to kill the armor-clad thief in their midst. Trineas hesitated, unsure what to do, when the armor itself suddenly guided his hand, summoning flames to protect him and to devastate his opponents. Before he knew what was happening, the Hellions were defeated. Trineas left the warehouse as quickly as he could.
Shortly afterwards, Trineas discovered that the armor would not come off. Unwilling to return to his normal life trapped within the armor, and eager to see just what sort of powers and abilities he now commanded, Trineas registered as the Paladin Phoenix, a hero, with Paragon City.
Death and Rebirth
It didn't take long for Trineas to discover that the longer he wore the armor, the longer it took him to recover from battle. Consulting with his colleague in Paragon, as well as a number of agents with the Modern Arcane Guild of Investigation, he uncovered a dark truth: the armor had been weakened considerably by the centuries of disuse, and only life energy would be able to re-enable its power. The armor was slowly but surely killing him, and worse, there was still no way to remove it.
Trineas accepted this news in stride, continuing to go about his hero business as he grew increasingly weaker and the armor grew stronger. Before long, Trineas was too weak to continue fighting, barely strong enough to survive.
It was during this time that Mark Houten, a computer programmer who had only recently come to Paragon for a job, encountered the dying hero. Trineas barely had time to gasp his hero name before expiring in front of the stunned civilian. As the armor took the last of Johnathan's strength, a tremendous wave of magical energy exploded out from the armor, reaching far across the globe, as the armor not only regained its full strength, but in fact surpassed it. When the smoke cleared, Mark found himself wearing the armor.
Drone
Unfortunately, the blast of magical energy had severely damaged Mark's neural pathways, damaging his memory and rendering him unable to function under his own power. The armor immediately set about repairing Mark's psyche, while at the same time working to maintain and strengthen his physical body. The armor at this time did not have a personality of its own, and it showed in Mark's movements; he was robotic, his face expressionless, and his speech, in the rare times he spoke, delivered in a monotone. As time passed, the armor began to understand more and more about human behavior, and was more able to approximate the characteristics it observed.
The repairs to Mark's brain, unfortunately, were not easy to complete, and in the end, the damage was too extensive to restore his memory entirely. Autonomic function was restored, and he was able to recover from his automaton-like state, but his memory remained a jumble of his own, Johnathan's and big blank spots.
Retreat and Return
For a time, Mark Houten carried on the legacy of the Paladin Phoenix, fighting the gangs and criminals of Paragon City in an attempt to safeguard the citizens. However, he did not respond as well to the armor's various intricacies as Johnathan did. In particular, he settled into a deep depression upon learning that he could not remove the armor, effectively trapping him in the life of a hero, a life that he had not chosen. Although the armor did not seem to be exhibiting the same parasitic tendencies it had once possessed, that knowledge failed to change Mark's mood.
In addition, he found that the life of a hero is a lonely one. As he created havoc among the gangs, traveling the length of Paragon City, he found that, aside from the occasional team up to take down a particularly vicious foe, he didn't have any friends among the hero community. His depression worsened as he realized that the life he had been forced to leave behind, his civilian life, was lost to him as long as he wore the armor.
He left Paragon City in early 2006, last seen flying from the city with little more than the armor on his back. Over the next year, he traveled the world on a budget, seeing sights such as Paris, Mount Kilimanjaro, and the bustling streets of Japan. He did not correspond with anyone during this time, preferring to be left to his own devices.
In March of 2007, he returned to Paragon City with as little fanfare as when he had left. He renewed his fight against criminals of the streets, but could not shake the loneliness and isolation he felt.
Upside-Down
However, a series of events conspired to change Mark's life forever shortly after his return to the city. While at Pocket D one night, he made the acquaintance of Terra Skye, a mage. During his conversations with her, he made the discovery that his memories were not entirely accurate, and began investigating further.
Shortly after meeting Terra, he made the acquaintance of Megan, a young girl from the Rogue Isles who had stowed away on a cargo ship to avoid being captured and used by Lord Recluse. Megan, an orphan, had no home, and was eating out of a trash can in Pocket D when Mark saw her. He immediately became protective of her, and they quickly became friends.
It was also during this time that a large figure in similar red armor, whose name was unknown, appeared before Mark's new friends, explaining that it was looking for the Paladin Phoenix, and that nothing would get in its way. Mark did not actually meet the figure, only hearing about it through his friends, though he began to notice reports of a similar figure rampaging through the Rogue Isles.
Mark met many people through his friends, and eventually came to realize that the life of a hero doesn't need to be a lonely one. As he began to trust his growing group of eclectic buddies more and more, he found that he was enjoying himself far more, and that being trapped in the armor was bothering him less and less each day.
Then things became complicated. One night, while meeting up with his friends Taxibot Theta (a.k.a. Sam) and Hephaestus 1 (a.k.a. Heph), he was surprised to find them conversing with a woman who looked vaguely familiar. He was even more surprised when she was identified as Megan, from the future.
Mark didn't react well to the news, but eventually, with adult Megan's help, he recovered to find something that disturbed him: he was falling in love with the time traveler. Initially hesitant to pursue any kind of relationship, he eventually gave in and began dating Megan. He struggled mightily to overcome the bizarreness of the situation, though it still haunts him to this day.
Double Identity
Fate, however, caught up with the Paladin Phoenix. Twice.
Shortly after he began dating the future Megan, the present, child Megan was kidnapped by someone later identified as Moone, on a night when Mark was supposed to be looking after her. Mark, desperate to rescue the young girl, almost rushed off on an (ill-advised) one-man rescue mission; eventually, his friends managed to calm him down long enough to plan a strategy before mounting the rescue. Megan was recovered without too much incident, but it seemed that things would not be so easily resolved; it was now obvious that someone was trying to kidnap her.
Only a few days later, young Megan was kidnapped again, and Mark rushed off to save her, only to discover that her kidnapper was the mysterious red armor that had threatened his friends before. Mark attacked the doppelgänger to save Megan, only to find that his attacks were almost completely ineffective, and the normal protection provided by his armor was of no use against the behemoth's dark energy attacks. Unable to defend himself, and unable to even damage his opponent, who identified himself as Wraith Phoenix, Mark was forced to retreat once he was able to retrieve Megan.
However, he was forced to leave his helmet behind, and the Wraith Phoenix took possession of it. Shortly afterwards, the helmet was destroyed, an act previously thought impossible. Its destruction caused Mark a great deal of pain, leaving a terrible scar on his face. Mark was forced to investigate the relationship between himself and his armor in a new light.
Mark descended into a deep depression following his encounter with Wraith Phoenix. The armored monster appeared to be relentless and without scruples, perfectly content to threaten, harm or kill anyone that got between it and its target. There seemed to be nothing that could prevent it from inevitably killing Mark.
However, Future Megan would not allow him to give up so easily. She continued to push, cajole and force him to face the reality that he could not simply give up, and that there were people who cared for him. Although hesitant to endanger his friends by involving them in a battle he wasn't sure would end well, he eventually agreed that something had to be done. Somehow, he had to defeat his evil twin.
For a full account of this adventure, see Paladin_Phoenix/Confrontation
Relapse
Shortly after his encounter with Wraith Phoenix, while conversing with his friends at Pocket D, Mark lost his mind. Seemingly without provocation, he became uncontrollably angry, and the scar on his face began to radiate a sickly dark energy as his anger grew. Eventually, unable to face his friends in fear of what his increasingly powerful anger might do, he ran away.
As he ran through the streets of Paragon and flew through the skies, he encountered many of the various gangs and crime syndicates. He attacked without warning, and mercilessly beat many of the minions far beyond any requirement for arrest. After some time, he somehow ended up in Perez Park, surrounded by a large number of Hellions. It was at this point that his anger peaked, resulting in an explosion of fire far beyond the norm for the Phoenix Armor.
Some time later, Mark limped back home, to find Future Megan, Terra Skye and Taxibot Theta waiting for him. His carry-all cape was shredded, his armor severly burnt and damaged, yet Mark himself didn't have a scratch on him. Despite the lack of visible damage, however, Mark felt as though he had been beaten within an inch of his life. After a few minutes, his mind passed out.
His body, however, remained conscious, taken over by another entity, which conveniently identified itself as "Armor", stating it was simply for lack of a better term. Unable to answer the question of what exactly had happened to Mark, Armor stated merely that Mark had some things to work out, and would be indisposed for some time.
Deep inside his own mind, Mark worked to rebuild the pieces of his past, intent on discovering exactly who he was, and what had happened to him.
New Identity
The process took several days, during which Armor was in control of Mark's body, but eventually, Mark re-emerged, his past finally intact. He explained to his friends that he was not the real Mark Houten, much to their surprise. Mark Houten, prior to wearing the Phoenix Armor, was, in fact, a "douchebag". A bully. A chaotic and downright mean individual. The latent anger that had been forgotten during the mind wipe all those months ago had struggled to reach the surface, and almost succeeded.
The new Mark Houten was, in fact, an amalgamation of the memories and personalities of Trineas, Houten, Armor, and the knight that had worn the armor centuries ago. He was, for all intents and purposes, a whole new person, but at the same time, he was the same person he had been before piecing his memories together. Nothing had changed, but he now had knowledge that he had forgotten before...including the memory of what Trineas and Armor had discovered about the magic surrounding the armor.
Departure
Terra then explained to Mark that she had an idea: if Wraith Phoenix's energies were tainted by the death of Johnathan Trineas, which seemed to be the case, then it was possible that infusing Mark and the Phoenix Armor with pure life energy would act as a counter-balance. However, the process could be dangerous: pure life energy was extremely powerful, and most mortal humans could not withstand it. Mark decided that it was worth a shot, as no other leads seemed to be presenting themselves. Terra introduced Mark to Lady Reiki, a specialist in chi energy, who made an interesting discovery: the scar on Mark's face was, in fact, residual death energy, a mark of Wraith Phoenix's attack.
It took some time for Lady Reiki to come up with the appropriate solution, but before too long, she had a potion that would infuse Mark's body, and by extension his armor, with life energy. However, the danger was now two-fold: too much would be bad, and there was no way of knowing how the energy would react to his scar. With only some hesitation, Mark downed the entire concoction in one go. The result was a significant amount of pain as the life energy forced the death energy out of his body. The scar was gone, and Mark now had a possible weapon against his nemesis.
However, the next day, Mark had disappeared. The only clue as to his whereabouts was a note stating simply that he had gone to sort something out, and he would be back as soon as he could. His location remains unknown.
Death
It has been confirmed that the Paladin Phoenix armor has been completely destroyed. In addition, Wraith Phoenix has seemingly disappeared. It has been theorized that the two had a final confrontation somewhere outside of Paragon City and destroyed each other, though Mark's body has not been found.
