The Hornet
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| |
| The Hornet | |
| StormForce Manager/Operative | |
| Player: Cyphre | |
| StormForce Intel | |
| Division: | Operations |
|---|---|
| Rank: | Captain/Operative |
| Origin/AT: | Science / MA/Regen |
| Security Level: | 42 |
| Operative Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Cole Morgan |
| Known Aliases: | No known aliases |
| Species: | Human |
| Age: | 51 |
| Height/Weight: | 5' 11" / 220lbs |
| Eye/Hair Color: | Black / Grey |
| Citizenship: | Citizen of the United Kingdom with no criminal record |
| Current Residence: | Brickstown, Paragon City, RI |
| Marital Status: | Single |
| Known Relatives: | No known relatives) |
| Known Powers | |
| Hyper-regenerative healing factor. Nanite-enhanced physical strength, stamina, agility, regeneration and prowess. Metal claws. Synthetic skin-covered cybernetic arms. | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Expert martial artist, Bladed weapons expert, Genius-level inventor, Gifted athlete, Computer use (expert level, hacker), Minor detective skills, British Special Forces training. | |
| Equipment | |
| |
| Footnotes | |
| |
 | |
Inspired by The Green Hornet, Kato, The Phantom, Iron Fist, The Question and of course The Cyphre and the infamous Recoil, The Hornet has been at times considered to be his creator's 'main' character.
Many years ago, Cole was created to be a 'supersoldier' and acted as a 5th Column Nacht Ubermenschen Fist, then served (and perhaps still serves) as a 5th Column Remnant sleeper agent/assassin.
Only several weeks after taking on the mantle of The Hornet and becoming a protector of Paragon's King's Row, Cole met John Talbot of The Cerulean Legion and was convinced to join the Legion's "Allies" Squad, comprised of non-sharded heroes the "evil" shardbearers of The Crimson Order couldn't detect (for more information on "shards", see The Cerulean Legion's page), but this team was dismantled after the death of Scion).
Cole was owner and manager of Operatives, Inc., a heroes-for-hire type business he ran with the help of his live-in girlfriend, Frankie Carter. He is currently co-field leader of StormForce, along with Colin Hutchence.
Wanting to retire and settle down with Frankie, Cole has for the past year secretly been training a young hero by the codename of Skylux to eventually become his replacement as The Hornet. However, after the most recent brainwashing by the 5th Column, Cole has no memory of his apprentice, and Skylux has since been recruited by S.C.O.R.P.I.O..
Cole's personality is a true fusion of 5th Column-invented implants and the people's memories with which he has been implanted. Truly only seven years of age and with a penchant for odd behavior, he can at times seem a bit introverted, closed off and secretive. This creates some social awkwardness when not in costume.
The Hornet mask and persona allows Cole to become something else... a symbol, something bigger and more powerful than he feels he could be otherwise. In costume he is more confident and focused, and his voice even deepens to match.
Until recently, Cole believed that he was the 5th person in the Morgan family to take up the mantle of The Hornet, a legacy started by his great-grandfather (who was a bit of a legend and had been a friend of Statesman) and passed on down through his grandfather, uncle and father. He had gone through most of the necessary training, often acting as a ninja-suited sidekick to his father, Marc Morgan (the 4th Hornet). When Cole was his late teens, he and his father had a falling out. Marc died soon after and Cole drifted aimlessly through the next several years, eventually becoming an out of shape, liver-damaged drunkard who had lost a great job, his fiancee, and who barely made ends meet by taking on only the most pathetic of private investigation work.
Downward spiraling, broken and alone, Cole was inspired when by chance he witnessed Sinjin Cross (son of Ivan Cross) bravely and skillfully fight a group of Lost. Tired of his pathetic existence, he resolved to turn his life around. He spent the next 17 months in Asia, retraining, studying. He returned to Paragon a changed man and began his own war on crime, becoming a protector of King's Row and continuing the legacy of his great grandfather.
Of course, none of this (as detailed in the story, Origin?) really happened except the trip to Asia for training. Whether these memories were the result of implants, self-delusion, dreams, or distorted actualities... or a mix of each... is at this time unknown.
In 1999, a British Special Forces officer then known as Agent 5 (Simon Kollmorgan) was captured, tortured and brainwashed by the 5th Column (see Recoil for details), shortly thereafter becoming a very effective 5th Column Nacht Ubermenschen Oberst. Discovered to be a mutant and gifted with an array of psionic abilities, he had also unwittingly become the primary DNA donor for a series of Column experiments to create a supersoldier.
The first several attempts had gone horribly wrong. The clones were all mentally impaired, deformed, had no immune systems to speak of, or displayed a combination of the these setbacks. All were destroyed and millions of the Column's research funds were wasted. This obviously did not sit well with the Council leadership. Vandal himself had taken a great interest in the project, demanding success. Heads were on the line, figuratively and literally. To remedy the situation, a few Column scientists lead by a Dr. Klaus Oberlander spliced in certain traits of a second, undisclosed mutant they'd managed to capture. The result was a successful clone (designated SK05-D), healthy and with a mind ripe for conditioning and implantation... though sadly lacking the powers of the primary donor. Any mutant genes the clone had seemed to be taking their time in manifestation, but were deemed probably inert.
However, the extra genes that had been spliced in to make the clone SK05-D had been from an undisclosed mutant whose sole power had been a sort of adaptation and/or mimic ability. While these genes had allowed SK05-D to survive, they'd also given him a limited ability for adaptation, able to reflexively mimic the abilities of others to a certain extent. Dr. Oberlander had surmised that the donor's DNA had made the clone's body a more than hospitable subject for genetic implantation. After successfully splicing mutant genes for enhanced strength and agility into SK05-D's DNA, he was proved correct.
Incredibly, after only four months of training and conditioning, SK05-D was fully operating as a Nacht Ubermenschen Fist. It was during this period that SK05-D began to display bizarre behavior, reportedly showing as much violence toward other Column officers as against their enemies, often tearing off his mask in battle to reveal bizarre facial affects as he repeatedly shouted only the most vulgar of obsenities.
Determined to somehow utilize their expensive little experiment, SK05-D's mind was wiped of it's conscious memories and retooled. Shown a particular symbol, the clone would "awaken", becoming a single-minded, but extremely adept assassin. Another symbol shown, and he returned to his normal, dormant state. Oberlander also programmed in an objective he called "Genetic Acquisition", wherein SK05-D would have the subconscious desire to seek out mutant DNA to add to his own (having been implanted with Oberlander's own knowledge of biochemical engineering and genetics), and to dispose of the donor mutant upon completion of the task. This would assure his survival, as well as making him an incredibly powerful asset to the organization. He was then left in the alleys of King's Row as a homeless vagrant and without memory... the perfect cover for a 5th Column sleeper agent.
Several months passed and SK05-D was proving a valuable asset, having executed several assassinations while retaining no memory of the events. Even as the 5th Column was brutally seized and taken over by the Council, Dr. Oberlander kept a watchful eye on his experiment, going so far as to destroy most of the records of SK05-D's existence in an act of loyalty to the Column and his work... an act that, once discovered, cost him the use of his legs.
Returning after a great deal of time away in recovery, Oberlander found to his utter astonishment that some odd developments had occurred in SK05-D's life. The clone had assumed an identity, taken on a name... and not just any name. 'Cole Morgan', a moniker which bore no coincidental resemblance to the surname of the primary DNA template's owner. Some traces of memory must have remained, Oberender theorized, perhaps on the cellular level. This 'Cole Morgan' had also started up a detective agency, albeit a rather pathetic one, and no longer lived on the streets. Needing some sense of identity and purpose, he apparently concocted some sort of history for himself... which, upon further investigation, seemed to be amalgamous of several different sources, including Simon Kollmorgan's childhood comic book hero stories and the undisclosed mutant's years of alcohol addiction and failure. Most shocking to Oberlander, however, was Cole Morgan's protectiveness and affection for Oberlander's estranged daughter, Janey, a waitress in King's Row whom Cole had imagined was his ex-fiancee. SK05-D had seemingly recieved some residual memory from Oberlander's knowledge as well.
After months of watching the peculiar, imagined downward spiral Cole Morgan's life was taking, Oberlander became concerned. The clone had suddenly gone off-grid after a failed private investigation job. By the time the Doctor was able to locate Cole as being in Nepal over a year later, the clone returned... changed. In what was perhaps the strangest development yet, SK05-D began donning a mask, weaponry, and became a "superhero"....actually transforming himself into a representation of Simon Kollmorgan's childhood comic book hero. This character, who in Simon's abused mind had been a fantasy guardian... a replacement father-figure, became in Cole's mind his actual father and predecessor.
SK05-D... Cole Morgan.... was now for better or worse...The Hornet.
While on patrol one night in mid-2006, high atop the King's Row rooftops, The Hornet was spotted from above by John Talbot, who mistook the crimefighter for a possible Council assassin (which was, ironically, not totally inaccurate... though neither of them knew it at the time). After a brief encounter, introductions were made and the two teamed to attack a Council bunker. Talbot, impressed with The Hornet's abilities and wealth of information, asked the scrapper to join The Cerulean Legion's new "Allies" squad, a group made up of non-sharded heroes who couldn't be detected by sharded villains led by Scion.
It was in this squad that The Hornet first saw and met Frankie Carter, a tough, street-wise scrapper wielding powers of darkness and regeneration. He was instantly smitten with the little blonde, drawn to her, and quickly decided that she would be the perfect partner for him, personally and professionally. Indeed, they began to work together constantly and soon fell in love. It was also at this time that Cole mysteriously began to diplay regenerative abilities of his own.
In addition to Cerulean Legion duties, The Hornet and Frankie started hiring themselves out as heroes to make a living. Talbot eventually caught wind of this and decided that while he didn't exactly disapprove of making a living as a hero, it didn't fit with the mission of The Cerulean Legion. Hornet and Frankie agreed mutually and respectfully to leave and the Allies squad, no longer needed after the death of Scion, was disbanded altogether.
Feeling more than a little disenfranchised after having left The Cerulean Legion, Cole and Frankie decided to make some sweeping changes to their lives and eventually were inspired to create from the ashes of Cole's admittedly pathetic private investigation service (which had been his livelihood) an official 'heroes-for-hire' service, merging the usually pro bono world of superheroics with the bill-paying practicality of private investigation. They set-up their offices in The Hornet's main King's Row safehouse, which also served as their living quarters, a revamped abandoned sewer underneath an old warehouse.
Both of the scrappers had used their own private savings to get the fledgeling business off the ground, and were a little nervous about how it would be received by the public and their superheroic peers. However, their gamble soon began to pay off, as Paragon City's overburdened heroes, Longbow and PPD often had more than enough slack for them to pick up. Frankie and Hornet were now overcome by the workload, and were forced to turn some opportunities... and thus, income... down. Desiring an expansion of their business, they started recruiting like-minded heroes to help them out as private contractors.
Thus, "Operatives, Inc." was born.
Tired of the endless, time-consuming red tape involved in running a business, the Hornet has given up on Operatives Inc. and opted instead to form StormForce along with ex-members of the PPDMHD.
In addition to normal superheroic work in Paragon City, StormForce is sent on covert missions to combat dictators, evil organizations, and crime lords. On occasion, they have also been known to conduct unsanctioned, private missions on behalf of its members. Featuring a group of super-specialists with enough money and power to do anything it takes to achieve their ends.
With incredible resources at their disposal and some very smart, powerful heroes in their ranks, StormForce works from the shadows, unknown, unsuspected, to change their world for the better.
Cole has been finding his recovery from battles is taking longer. Bruises remain for hours rather than minutes, fractured bones take several days rather than hours. Unnerved, he sought the assistance of Oberender's assistant. He found his answers.
Cole's cellular structure has begun the slow process of breaking down, kept only partially in check by his regenerative powers. It seems that all 5th Column clones had limitation placed within as insurance ... a 5 year lifespan. The regen had already kept him alive longer than he was supposed to have lived, but it wouldn't last forever. The Hornet had mere months to live.
Nothing is as it seems, however, and Oberender's assistant was still loyal to the Column. A remnant faction managed to capture The Hornet and implant new memories, none of which included his fiancee or what he had previously learned about his true origins. Cole was once again the perfect Column sleeper agent. Now using the name "The Cyphre", he returned to the streets of Paragon as a hero, unconsciously assassinating Column targets whenever he was needed.
However, this wouldn't last long. Within weeks, Cole was captured and deprogrammed by a mysterious organization called Operation: Grey Razor, who also managed to shore-up his failing genetic structure. Oddly enough, he was then released, never to hear from them again. He has since resumed his crimefighting career as the leader of StormForce. Frankie remains unaware that Cole has returned, and he means for it to stay that way, at least for now, as he feels that she is better off without him and his baggage.
- (Appears in-game as "Hornet.". Don't you dare judge me, you ugly freaks!)
