RE: Masks 2
09-08-2018, 11:52 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-09-2018, 08:31 PM by WesternSage.)
Name: Marcus Loxley
Aliases: Vigil, Protector (former), The Robin (during team up with Casey, known then as The Rock), Ranger (operational codename)
Date of Birth: March 30, 1988
Place of Birth: Shermingham, West Virginia
Place of Residence: Varying, but the last five years (and a few prior to that) have been spent in a commune called the Hollow, established in what used to be a forgotten and derelict underground missile silo in the wilderness of West Virginia.
Appearance: Standing at 5'5", Marcus doesn't strike a particularly imposing figure in his civilian clothes. He tends to wear heavy raincoats and non-descript tactical clothing out and about, and when not in the field, he wears more comfortable clothing, long-sleeved flannel shirts and blue jeans. He has a scraggly beard, mostly grey with streaks of brown remaining, and his short, amateurishly cut hair sports the same coloration. He has one hazel eye on his right, and one steel-grey on his left, the latter sporting a camera-lens iris. His left arm is a sleek looking metal prosthetic, with a pointed elbow and knuckles. He sports a severe scar on the left side of his face, particularly around his eye, and on his shoulder and lower leg.
As Vigil, his costume is a light hooded jacket, black, with a light xeno-metal armored vest. The chestpiece has a symbol consisting of a dark-gold "V" with a candle in the middle, the flame on which conceals a powerful LED light capable of blinding or spotlighting his enemies. The long pants are lightly armored as well, having hidden pockets on the side for concealing small objects, and his belt is a utility belt, with various pouches for grenades and gadgets. His boots have armored toes and spiked soles towards the front to assist with climbing.
Personality: Terse, reclusive, and pragmatic, Marcus isn't always the most pleasant person to be around. He comes across as a grumpy old man, but most who know him will attest to him always being that way. He identifies as asexual, something he's only come around on in the last fifteen or so years, having not thought too much on it before then. He attributed it to him being a trained human weapon, a toxic mindset he has worked very hard to defuse, though this odd brand of toxic masculinity still haunts aspects of his personality to this day.
Powers, Skills, and/or Resources:
SKILLS:
RESOURCES:
Biography:
Friends, Family, Acquiantances, Rivals, Enemies, and anybody else:
Aliases: Vigil, Protector (former), The Robin (during team up with Casey, known then as The Rock), Ranger (operational codename)
Date of Birth: March 30, 1988
Place of Birth: Shermingham, West Virginia
Place of Residence: Varying, but the last five years (and a few prior to that) have been spent in a commune called the Hollow, established in what used to be a forgotten and derelict underground missile silo in the wilderness of West Virginia.
Appearance: Standing at 5'5", Marcus doesn't strike a particularly imposing figure in his civilian clothes. He tends to wear heavy raincoats and non-descript tactical clothing out and about, and when not in the field, he wears more comfortable clothing, long-sleeved flannel shirts and blue jeans. He has a scraggly beard, mostly grey with streaks of brown remaining, and his short, amateurishly cut hair sports the same coloration. He has one hazel eye on his right, and one steel-grey on his left, the latter sporting a camera-lens iris. His left arm is a sleek looking metal prosthetic, with a pointed elbow and knuckles. He sports a severe scar on the left side of his face, particularly around his eye, and on his shoulder and lower leg.
As Vigil, his costume is a light hooded jacket, black, with a light xeno-metal armored vest. The chestpiece has a symbol consisting of a dark-gold "V" with a candle in the middle, the flame on which conceals a powerful LED light capable of blinding or spotlighting his enemies. The long pants are lightly armored as well, having hidden pockets on the side for concealing small objects, and his belt is a utility belt, with various pouches for grenades and gadgets. His boots have armored toes and spiked soles towards the front to assist with climbing.
Personality: Terse, reclusive, and pragmatic, Marcus isn't always the most pleasant person to be around. He comes across as a grumpy old man, but most who know him will attest to him always being that way. He identifies as asexual, something he's only come around on in the last fifteen or so years, having not thought too much on it before then. He attributed it to him being a trained human weapon, a toxic mindset he has worked very hard to defuse, though this odd brand of toxic masculinity still haunts aspects of his personality to this day.
Powers, Skills, and/or Resources:
SKILLS:
Show Content
Spoiler
SUPER ARCHERY - Marcus can shoot three arrows at once, he's so good. Can you do that? Yeah, didn't think so.
SUPER ENGINEERING - Marcus has gotten pretty good at prototyping and building equipment. That said, he's no Max Volts, but given time, he can design incredible inventions from scrap. Most of the time, he employs his engineering to make due with recycled components. A junkyard is his quiver, a janitorial closet is his chemical cabinet.
C. Q. C. - Marcus was trained as a child in a brutal and efficient mix of physical combat styles. Throughout the years, he's augmented this with his own training- he also knows muay thai kickboxing and escrima stick fighting. The former learned for his role as Protector, the latter for his role as The Robin, where he tried to employ less maim-y techniques and weaponry to be a good influence on Casey. It didn't work the way he wanted, but he now has a great respect for the amount of ways you can destroy the human body with a stick.
STEALTH - Marcus was trained in guerrilla warfare and the art of moving silently, skills he's refined during his years working on his own.
DEXTERITY - Marcus' physical training has always emphasized movement and dexterity. He might be old, a little sore, and sporting a metal appendage, but that hasn't slowed him down too much.
SCIENCE - Marcus is just BARELY not a "super" scientist, but he IS highly skilled as a chemist, still. He is capable of producing painkillers, hallucinogens, high-grade acids, and foams of various nature, just to name a few of his formulas. He's learned to make antidepressants but the many, many ways those can go wrong scare him. The antidepressant arrow might never come to be.
SURVIVAL - All of Orwell's child soldiers were trained to survive in the brutal theoretical wasteland of the post-apocalypse. Marcus knows three different ways to skin and butcher a raccoon. He knows how to identify poisonous and edible plants in the American West, and could make good guesses elsewhere. He can make a rain-proof shelter out of cardboard boxes, trashbags, chewing gum, and rubberbands. Orwell didn't teach him that one. That one he learned as a hobby.
SUPER ARCHERY - Marcus can shoot three arrows at once, he's so good. Can you do that? Yeah, didn't think so.
SUPER ENGINEERING - Marcus has gotten pretty good at prototyping and building equipment. That said, he's no Max Volts, but given time, he can design incredible inventions from scrap. Most of the time, he employs his engineering to make due with recycled components. A junkyard is his quiver, a janitorial closet is his chemical cabinet.
C. Q. C. - Marcus was trained as a child in a brutal and efficient mix of physical combat styles. Throughout the years, he's augmented this with his own training- he also knows muay thai kickboxing and escrima stick fighting. The former learned for his role as Protector, the latter for his role as The Robin, where he tried to employ less maim-y techniques and weaponry to be a good influence on Casey. It didn't work the way he wanted, but he now has a great respect for the amount of ways you can destroy the human body with a stick.
STEALTH - Marcus was trained in guerrilla warfare and the art of moving silently, skills he's refined during his years working on his own.
DEXTERITY - Marcus' physical training has always emphasized movement and dexterity. He might be old, a little sore, and sporting a metal appendage, but that hasn't slowed him down too much.
SCIENCE - Marcus is just BARELY not a "super" scientist, but he IS highly skilled as a chemist, still. He is capable of producing painkillers, hallucinogens, high-grade acids, and foams of various nature, just to name a few of his formulas. He's learned to make antidepressants but the many, many ways those can go wrong scare him. The antidepressant arrow might never come to be.
SURVIVAL - All of Orwell's child soldiers were trained to survive in the brutal theoretical wasteland of the post-apocalypse. Marcus knows three different ways to skin and butcher a raccoon. He knows how to identify poisonous and edible plants in the American West, and could make good guesses elsewhere. He can make a rain-proof shelter out of cardboard boxes, trashbags, chewing gum, and rubberbands. Orwell didn't teach him that one. That one he learned as a hobby.
RESOURCES:
Show Content
Spoiler
MONEY HIDDEN DEEP IN THE MOUNTAINS, IN AN OLD CONDEMNED COAL MINE: Not too deep in, but deep enough to elude all but the most bold of searchers. The safe is wired to many boxes labeled EXPLOSIVES to ward off those. They're not actually attached to explosives, but a series of flashbangs, which go off in sequence, spaced out enough to cause thieves to run off. The cash is all that is left over from Marcus' day as a legitimate inventor and businessman. It's not a fortune, but it's enough to fall back on in case of emergency.
THE QUIVER - A room of the Hollow where Marcus stores his gear. He has developed many arrows over the years, some of them very situational. Some, understandable, like his firefoam and explosive arrows. Some, you can think of uses from, such as the Strikeback Arrow (with shoots another arrow out of the end after either a set time limit or impact) are a little ridiculous but functional. Others, like the Inflatable Raft Arrow, The Christmas Lights Arrow, and the Pocket Sand Arrow, suggest that Marcus needs more hobbies.
He also has his Supercomputer and personal lab here, and against a far wall are secure display cases displaying some of his older costumes, including his costume as The Robin. He covers that one up when new visitors come in, because no one else seemed to understand the merits of tactical shorts.
THE HOLLOW: The Hollow is acting as a refuge for various academics and intellectuals, including a trained doctor, a bionic prostheticist, and even America's True Superhero (and Villain) Museum!
Marcus doesn't allow the last one to advertise, understandably.
AMERICA'S TRUE SUPERHERO (AND VILLAIN) MUSEUM - A museum operated by an eccentric who Marcus is tolerating, he uses it as a way to store old superhero and villain gear that he's managed to gather. The most recent addition is a very charred, somewhat bloody armor worn by the last Protector, along with what was left of his gadgetry. They've got pamphlets (sans an address), t-shirts, ballcaps, 3D printed mugs, and even a newsletter describing the Exhibit of the Month! Marcus does not let them ship any of this. As a trade off for their... Service... He has tended to drop off the newsletters throughout the cities he infiltrates, and occasionally leaves hats, shirts, and mugs in Megacorp offices that he raids.
VIGIL SUIT - A light-armored suit made with alien and highly advanced scientific materials. It is, as follows: a light hooded jacket, black, with a light xeno-metal armored vest. The chestpiece has a symbol consisting of a dark-gold "V" with a candle in the middle, the flame on which conceals a powerful LED light capable of blinding or spotlighting his enemies. The long pants are lightly armored as well, having hidden pockets on the side for concealing small objects, and his belt is a utility belt, with various pouches for grenades and gadgets. His boots have armored toes and spiked soles towards the front to assist with climbing.
TOOLBELT - Vigil's belt holds a bunch of gadgets, most custom made. He has firefoam, concrete foam, and flashbang grenades of his own design, a few sets of collapsible handcuffs, a few healing gel syringes, a pair of stun batons, a microflashlight, a micro-cutting torch, a collapsible grappling hook and reinforced wire, a multitool, and light, alien-alloy prybar. The buckle of the belt can hook onto wire from his grappling hook and grappling arrows, allowing him to use gas-canisters to zip up vertical surfaces more quickly.
ARMORED QUIVER - a quiver of Marcus' own design. He's worked it over the last ten or so years, and it now holds 40 arrows. It's rectangular and straps to his back, with a light cushion between the back and the case. A small compartment on the bottom holds special arrowheads that for magnetic, goo, blunt, serrated, fishhook (?), and timed or impact ignition for explosive arrow types.
FAILSAFE - Marcus' robotic arm. It looks fairly normal, and has all the functionality of a regular human arm, plus, you know, being metallic, and the outer casing is made from a hardened alloy, with light alien alloy plating. However, the arm hides another function- when two buttons are activated simultaneously on his upper arm, the lower arm expands with a pneumatic hiss into a powerful compound bow. Now, Marcus will never be unarmed. The upper arm has an arrow divided into two sections hidden in a ridge of the design, just in case.
PROVIDENCE MK 3: A cyber-eye designed in secret by a megacorp for use by their own private enforcers. It allows its user infra-red, x-ray, electronic detection (for spotting electrical activity in, say, wires), night vision, and zooming on will. It also allows its user to see a "Heads Up Display" and a variety of light augmented reality functions, though the user will always be able to tell what is a product of the eye and what isn't. One of Marcus' support team broke the megacorp coding and tracking, and it now runs a cracked OS popular amongst transhumanist hackers. There is a port that allows the user to "jack" into computers and interface with them mentally, but Marcus tried this exactly once during his training with it, promptly unplugged it, and grumbled over having a headache for the rest of the day. He's not using that again anytime soon.
THE GOD-KILLING ARROW: An arrow Marcus had been developing on-and-off with the help of wizards he knew, particularly The Raven and Nick Urias. He called off development five years ago, and the arrow as it is probably can't kill God, but it DOES have immense anti-magic properties. Marcus doesn't want to use it since, at the last time Nick looked at it, he told Marcus that it "Probably could destroy any soul it consumes, don't know how many." Kept locked in an enchanted silver case.
THE NUKE ARROW - Very much not an arrow but very much an outdated nuclear warhead attached to a ramshackle missile Marcus has been prototyping. He didn't plan on having a nuclear deterrent, but he found one deep in the silo's storage when he established his base there, and decided he didn't want to get rid of it. His roboticist wants to attach it to a bipedal tank, but Marcus thinks that's dumb.
MONEY HIDDEN DEEP IN THE MOUNTAINS, IN AN OLD CONDEMNED COAL MINE: Not too deep in, but deep enough to elude all but the most bold of searchers. The safe is wired to many boxes labeled EXPLOSIVES to ward off those. They're not actually attached to explosives, but a series of flashbangs, which go off in sequence, spaced out enough to cause thieves to run off. The cash is all that is left over from Marcus' day as a legitimate inventor and businessman. It's not a fortune, but it's enough to fall back on in case of emergency.
THE QUIVER - A room of the Hollow where Marcus stores his gear. He has developed many arrows over the years, some of them very situational. Some, understandable, like his firefoam and explosive arrows. Some, you can think of uses from, such as the Strikeback Arrow (with shoots another arrow out of the end after either a set time limit or impact) are a little ridiculous but functional. Others, like the Inflatable Raft Arrow, The Christmas Lights Arrow, and the Pocket Sand Arrow, suggest that Marcus needs more hobbies.
He also has his Supercomputer and personal lab here, and against a far wall are secure display cases displaying some of his older costumes, including his costume as The Robin. He covers that one up when new visitors come in, because no one else seemed to understand the merits of tactical shorts.
THE HOLLOW: The Hollow is acting as a refuge for various academics and intellectuals, including a trained doctor, a bionic prostheticist, and even America's True Superhero (and Villain) Museum!
Marcus doesn't allow the last one to advertise, understandably.
AMERICA'S TRUE SUPERHERO (AND VILLAIN) MUSEUM - A museum operated by an eccentric who Marcus is tolerating, he uses it as a way to store old superhero and villain gear that he's managed to gather. The most recent addition is a very charred, somewhat bloody armor worn by the last Protector, along with what was left of his gadgetry. They've got pamphlets (sans an address), t-shirts, ballcaps, 3D printed mugs, and even a newsletter describing the Exhibit of the Month! Marcus does not let them ship any of this. As a trade off for their... Service... He has tended to drop off the newsletters throughout the cities he infiltrates, and occasionally leaves hats, shirts, and mugs in Megacorp offices that he raids.
VIGIL SUIT - A light-armored suit made with alien and highly advanced scientific materials. It is, as follows: a light hooded jacket, black, with a light xeno-metal armored vest. The chestpiece has a symbol consisting of a dark-gold "V" with a candle in the middle, the flame on which conceals a powerful LED light capable of blinding or spotlighting his enemies. The long pants are lightly armored as well, having hidden pockets on the side for concealing small objects, and his belt is a utility belt, with various pouches for grenades and gadgets. His boots have armored toes and spiked soles towards the front to assist with climbing.
TOOLBELT - Vigil's belt holds a bunch of gadgets, most custom made. He has firefoam, concrete foam, and flashbang grenades of his own design, a few sets of collapsible handcuffs, a few healing gel syringes, a pair of stun batons, a microflashlight, a micro-cutting torch, a collapsible grappling hook and reinforced wire, a multitool, and light, alien-alloy prybar. The buckle of the belt can hook onto wire from his grappling hook and grappling arrows, allowing him to use gas-canisters to zip up vertical surfaces more quickly.
ARMORED QUIVER - a quiver of Marcus' own design. He's worked it over the last ten or so years, and it now holds 40 arrows. It's rectangular and straps to his back, with a light cushion between the back and the case. A small compartment on the bottom holds special arrowheads that for magnetic, goo, blunt, serrated, fishhook (?), and timed or impact ignition for explosive arrow types.
FAILSAFE - Marcus' robotic arm. It looks fairly normal, and has all the functionality of a regular human arm, plus, you know, being metallic, and the outer casing is made from a hardened alloy, with light alien alloy plating. However, the arm hides another function- when two buttons are activated simultaneously on his upper arm, the lower arm expands with a pneumatic hiss into a powerful compound bow. Now, Marcus will never be unarmed. The upper arm has an arrow divided into two sections hidden in a ridge of the design, just in case.
PROVIDENCE MK 3: A cyber-eye designed in secret by a megacorp for use by their own private enforcers. It allows its user infra-red, x-ray, electronic detection (for spotting electrical activity in, say, wires), night vision, and zooming on will. It also allows its user to see a "Heads Up Display" and a variety of light augmented reality functions, though the user will always be able to tell what is a product of the eye and what isn't. One of Marcus' support team broke the megacorp coding and tracking, and it now runs a cracked OS popular amongst transhumanist hackers. There is a port that allows the user to "jack" into computers and interface with them mentally, but Marcus tried this exactly once during his training with it, promptly unplugged it, and grumbled over having a headache for the rest of the day. He's not using that again anytime soon.
THE GOD-KILLING ARROW: An arrow Marcus had been developing on-and-off with the help of wizards he knew, particularly The Raven and Nick Urias. He called off development five years ago, and the arrow as it is probably can't kill God, but it DOES have immense anti-magic properties. Marcus doesn't want to use it since, at the last time Nick looked at it, he told Marcus that it "Probably could destroy any soul it consumes, don't know how many." Kept locked in an enchanted silver case.
THE NUKE ARROW - Very much not an arrow but very much an outdated nuclear warhead attached to a ramshackle missile Marcus has been prototyping. He didn't plan on having a nuclear deterrent, but he found one deep in the silo's storage when he established his base there, and decided he didn't want to get rid of it. His roboticist wants to attach it to a bipedal tank, but Marcus thinks that's dumb.
Biography:
Show Content
Spoiler When Marcus was eight, he was kidnapped by a madman named Father Orwell. Father Orwell was convinced the world would end and that humanity would need a new breed of super soldier to save them from extinction, one capable of operating with limited resources and in any condition. Thus, he kidnapped eight children total, brutally trained them to become child soldiers, and had them all learn the bow, as he believed it to be the most versatile and practical of any weapon. For graduation, they were divided into pairs and set against each other in a lethal contest. Marcus won his Graduation bout, albeit unwillingly, sending a friend over a cliff with an arrow to the leg. Orwell came to congratulate Marcus personally, but young Marcus didn't hesitate to put an arrow in Orwell's throat. Marcus escaped, but all his friends were either dead or missing, and Orwell's body was never found.
Over a decade later, Marcus was a haunted man trying to live some semblance of what he perceived to be a "normal" life for sake of his friends and family. He didn't consider himself human, he considered himself a living weapon. And when his best friend, Sam, was kicked to death by bigots in an alley, Marcus decided that he should use his abilities to prevent things like that from happening again. He became Vigil, The Man Who Remembers Those Society Forgets, and he murdered the three men as they celebrated getting off from the Sam's murder in a trailer park party. However, he murdered a fourth. The man was a white supremacist, no one to mourn, but Marcus had intended to wound him. He realized that, even if this person was irredeemable, he was no perfect weapon.
Shortly after, his friend Emily Lexington, a journalist, found out his identity while both were pursuing a criminal known as Tank Man. She threatened to out him to the feds if he continued a lethal approach, and Marcus agreed. Having given in to using non-lethal approaches to crime-fighting (barring understandable exceptions), the pair worked together to fight crime in Shermingham.
Following a brief team-up with the hero Watchman to stop the Burning Butcher ransacking Great Bay City (and triggering international nuclear war), Vigil saved a group of children from Father Orwell (who had survived his supposed death), turning them over to an institution known as KNIGHT for deprogramming. Afterwards, he was called to D.C. to fight the alien invasion. Despite his exploits during that, he was declined a pardon from the president. Dejected, he returned to Shermingham.
In Shermingham, he found that one of the children he had saved refused KNIGHT's offer to lose the memories of her Orwell training and had fought off an alien ship over Shermingham on her own. Vigil, seeing a reflection of himself, convinced her to train under him in trade for not forsaking her family and utilizing non-lethal tactics. Her name was Emma, and she'd go on to adopt the moniker Devana, operating as a hero on her own.
Marcus would go on to keep operating as Vigil, but started to grow as a person. He recognized his 'weapon' mindset as toxic, seeing the active harm of it in Emma, and he tried to keep better touch with his family. However, the bloody roots of his vigilante identity remained, and he felt that the people, especially children, needed a better example to follow. Thus, with the help of billionaire Burt Burson, he started building a new superheroic identity. Protector, a gadget-based hero who fought crime with hand-to-hand combat and science. In the process, he patented a few inventions and built a clean source of income himself. Somewhere in there, some robots were fought.
Then, Orwell returned.
He had a child assassin impersonate Vigil as a trap. Protector responded, and with his new skills, nearly got the upper hand, but Marcus was caught all the same. At a remote facility, Orwell revealed his plan: hired by corporate backers, he was going to destabilize all world governments. However, he was also going to double cross the corporations as well, creating a new world, in which man had to struggle, be creative, and grow strong to survive. Marcus managed to escape, destroying Orwell's cloning facility, and, with the help of U.S. military hero Bald Eagle 2, he took down Orwell and put a permanent end to him and his plans.
Marcus spent time afterwards with fellow survivor Marianne hunting down the corporate backers of Orwell's plot (with different means, Marianne was an assassin, a lifestyle Marcus never judged her for), and then God Woke Up.
Marcus spoke with God (tersely, he doesn't like the guy) and, after, spoke with his friend, Sam. Sam was more disappointed in Marcus than upset with him, asking Marcus to invest more effort in taking care of himself. Marcus realized his subconscious identification as a weapon was more persuasive than he initially thought.
Following the apocalypse, Marcus spent more time trying to awkwardly bond with his fellow heroes. Maria often didn't have time for his nonsense ('Marcus, I don't have time to start a fire-fighting superteam, for the last time'), Marianne wanted to charge him for any superheroic outing, and he formed a three year long superteam with Casey Kane that went by various names (the most popular being, to Marcus' chagrin, Rock 'n' Robin), and he tried his best to get his own company, Loxley Incorporated, off the ground.
By 2030, Marcus' life wasn't going so well. His teamup with Casey ended along with Loxley Incorporated, who was crushed by a megacorp who Marcus managed to slight. Without financial resources, he couldn't support more than one superheroic career. He let Casey keep the Rockmobile (specially made for him to drive) and the special combat suit he'd built him. (Mostly a lightly armored jumpsuit with goggles.) His friend and confidant, old Man Jenkins, had died and left him his ranch around 2025, but the megacorps had pressured the state to claim it as imminent domain. Marcus became heavily reliant upon his friend and patron, Burt Burson.
Then, in 2036, Burson Industries was bought out, and Burson himself was killed in an incident the news media covered as a tragic accident. In reality, it was very obviously a hired killing by the megacorps. Without a home, Marcus became desperate.
For a couple years he lived in the old tunnel system beneath Shermingham, having established a base there over the last ten years. However, the megacorps were more persistent than the police were, and Marcus grew to fear that operating in the shadow of them might be unwise. He took to the wilds of West Virginia, roaming about until he happened upon an abandoned underground missile silo in late 2038. He started squatting there, setting up gear and facilities to live off the grid, but was quickly met with a crisis when others fleeing the megacorps found his hideout. Though he wanted to send them on their way, he knew his friend Sam would want him to give them shelter, and so he did. Over the next few years he built up quite the motley crew, establishing his own small, functional commune.
And then Protector showed up.
Within the fall of Burson Industries, Marcus had lost his Protector equipment. Unfortunately, the megacorps found it. They used it to establish a solidly pro-corporate hero, betraying the working class of Shermingham at his leisure, cracking down on protests, illegally entering the apartments of anti-corporation individuals to beat them into submission. Marcus tried to ignore it, focusing on targeting the operations of the Megacorps with his vigilante actions, until Protector beat a few of an old friend's close associates into a coma. Then, then Marcus was angry.
Vigil waged a war on Protector that lasted a few years, quickly once again becoming a branded public enemy. Finally, in 2045, Marcus engaged Protector in a chemical refinery, following a brutal protest crackdown. Protector revealed that he had stuck a few of the protesting workers next to a heavy machine, rigged to blow, whose deaths he'd blame on the other pro-union employees neglecting their jobs. Marcus pinned Protector to a wall and set upon saving the civilians, however, at cutting the last one free, Protector charged him, engaging in melee. He'd freed himself by stripping his armor, and Marcus could now see that the man was no mere man, he was cybernetically enhanced. He held Marcus in a wrestling pin, and snarled into his ear, "We all go together, Commie."
Marcus doesn't remember surviving the explosion. He doesn't remember his support team pulling him out. He just remembers waking up, months later, in a bed at the Hollow, missing an arm and an eye. He considered killing himself, but stopped at the thought of the children suffering who, unlike him, didn't know there was an afterlife utopia waiting for the innocent following the cruel joke of life. With the help of one of his commune, a cyberneticist specializing in prosthetics, he made an arm to replace the one he lost, one capable of expanding into a powerful, sleek compound bow in the lower arm. He salvaged an eye from the remains of Protector, which his team had brought home with him. He spent the following years training in his new prosthetics, getting used to them, and working on his plans to take down the megacorps.
They'd taken so much from him, and even worse, from the children who would be forced to inherit tomorrow. Vigil was going to take it all back.
Over a decade later, Marcus was a haunted man trying to live some semblance of what he perceived to be a "normal" life for sake of his friends and family. He didn't consider himself human, he considered himself a living weapon. And when his best friend, Sam, was kicked to death by bigots in an alley, Marcus decided that he should use his abilities to prevent things like that from happening again. He became Vigil, The Man Who Remembers Those Society Forgets, and he murdered the three men as they celebrated getting off from the Sam's murder in a trailer park party. However, he murdered a fourth. The man was a white supremacist, no one to mourn, but Marcus had intended to wound him. He realized that, even if this person was irredeemable, he was no perfect weapon.
Shortly after, his friend Emily Lexington, a journalist, found out his identity while both were pursuing a criminal known as Tank Man. She threatened to out him to the feds if he continued a lethal approach, and Marcus agreed. Having given in to using non-lethal approaches to crime-fighting (barring understandable exceptions), the pair worked together to fight crime in Shermingham.
Following a brief team-up with the hero Watchman to stop the Burning Butcher ransacking Great Bay City (and triggering international nuclear war), Vigil saved a group of children from Father Orwell (who had survived his supposed death), turning them over to an institution known as KNIGHT for deprogramming. Afterwards, he was called to D.C. to fight the alien invasion. Despite his exploits during that, he was declined a pardon from the president. Dejected, he returned to Shermingham.
In Shermingham, he found that one of the children he had saved refused KNIGHT's offer to lose the memories of her Orwell training and had fought off an alien ship over Shermingham on her own. Vigil, seeing a reflection of himself, convinced her to train under him in trade for not forsaking her family and utilizing non-lethal tactics. Her name was Emma, and she'd go on to adopt the moniker Devana, operating as a hero on her own.
Marcus would go on to keep operating as Vigil, but started to grow as a person. He recognized his 'weapon' mindset as toxic, seeing the active harm of it in Emma, and he tried to keep better touch with his family. However, the bloody roots of his vigilante identity remained, and he felt that the people, especially children, needed a better example to follow. Thus, with the help of billionaire Burt Burson, he started building a new superheroic identity. Protector, a gadget-based hero who fought crime with hand-to-hand combat and science. In the process, he patented a few inventions and built a clean source of income himself. Somewhere in there, some robots were fought.
Then, Orwell returned.
He had a child assassin impersonate Vigil as a trap. Protector responded, and with his new skills, nearly got the upper hand, but Marcus was caught all the same. At a remote facility, Orwell revealed his plan: hired by corporate backers, he was going to destabilize all world governments. However, he was also going to double cross the corporations as well, creating a new world, in which man had to struggle, be creative, and grow strong to survive. Marcus managed to escape, destroying Orwell's cloning facility, and, with the help of U.S. military hero Bald Eagle 2, he took down Orwell and put a permanent end to him and his plans.
Marcus spent time afterwards with fellow survivor Marianne hunting down the corporate backers of Orwell's plot (with different means, Marianne was an assassin, a lifestyle Marcus never judged her for), and then God Woke Up.
Marcus spoke with God (tersely, he doesn't like the guy) and, after, spoke with his friend, Sam. Sam was more disappointed in Marcus than upset with him, asking Marcus to invest more effort in taking care of himself. Marcus realized his subconscious identification as a weapon was more persuasive than he initially thought.
Following the apocalypse, Marcus spent more time trying to awkwardly bond with his fellow heroes. Maria often didn't have time for his nonsense ('Marcus, I don't have time to start a fire-fighting superteam, for the last time'), Marianne wanted to charge him for any superheroic outing, and he formed a three year long superteam with Casey Kane that went by various names (the most popular being, to Marcus' chagrin, Rock 'n' Robin), and he tried his best to get his own company, Loxley Incorporated, off the ground.
By 2030, Marcus' life wasn't going so well. His teamup with Casey ended along with Loxley Incorporated, who was crushed by a megacorp who Marcus managed to slight. Without financial resources, he couldn't support more than one superheroic career. He let Casey keep the Rockmobile (specially made for him to drive) and the special combat suit he'd built him. (Mostly a lightly armored jumpsuit with goggles.) His friend and confidant, old Man Jenkins, had died and left him his ranch around 2025, but the megacorps had pressured the state to claim it as imminent domain. Marcus became heavily reliant upon his friend and patron, Burt Burson.
Then, in 2036, Burson Industries was bought out, and Burson himself was killed in an incident the news media covered as a tragic accident. In reality, it was very obviously a hired killing by the megacorps. Without a home, Marcus became desperate.
For a couple years he lived in the old tunnel system beneath Shermingham, having established a base there over the last ten years. However, the megacorps were more persistent than the police were, and Marcus grew to fear that operating in the shadow of them might be unwise. He took to the wilds of West Virginia, roaming about until he happened upon an abandoned underground missile silo in late 2038. He started squatting there, setting up gear and facilities to live off the grid, but was quickly met with a crisis when others fleeing the megacorps found his hideout. Though he wanted to send them on their way, he knew his friend Sam would want him to give them shelter, and so he did. Over the next few years he built up quite the motley crew, establishing his own small, functional commune.
And then Protector showed up.
Within the fall of Burson Industries, Marcus had lost his Protector equipment. Unfortunately, the megacorps found it. They used it to establish a solidly pro-corporate hero, betraying the working class of Shermingham at his leisure, cracking down on protests, illegally entering the apartments of anti-corporation individuals to beat them into submission. Marcus tried to ignore it, focusing on targeting the operations of the Megacorps with his vigilante actions, until Protector beat a few of an old friend's close associates into a coma. Then, then Marcus was angry.
Vigil waged a war on Protector that lasted a few years, quickly once again becoming a branded public enemy. Finally, in 2045, Marcus engaged Protector in a chemical refinery, following a brutal protest crackdown. Protector revealed that he had stuck a few of the protesting workers next to a heavy machine, rigged to blow, whose deaths he'd blame on the other pro-union employees neglecting their jobs. Marcus pinned Protector to a wall and set upon saving the civilians, however, at cutting the last one free, Protector charged him, engaging in melee. He'd freed himself by stripping his armor, and Marcus could now see that the man was no mere man, he was cybernetically enhanced. He held Marcus in a wrestling pin, and snarled into his ear, "We all go together, Commie."
Marcus doesn't remember surviving the explosion. He doesn't remember his support team pulling him out. He just remembers waking up, months later, in a bed at the Hollow, missing an arm and an eye. He considered killing himself, but stopped at the thought of the children suffering who, unlike him, didn't know there was an afterlife utopia waiting for the innocent following the cruel joke of life. With the help of one of his commune, a cyberneticist specializing in prosthetics, he made an arm to replace the one he lost, one capable of expanding into a powerful, sleek compound bow in the lower arm. He salvaged an eye from the remains of Protector, which his team had brought home with him. He spent the following years training in his new prosthetics, getting used to them, and working on his plans to take down the megacorps.
They'd taken so much from him, and even worse, from the children who would be forced to inherit tomorrow. Vigil was going to take it all back.
Friends, Family, Acquiantances, Rivals, Enemies, and anybody else:
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Spoiler
LEON AND CAMILLA LOXLEY: Marcus's parents. Not too notable, they're under the belief that Marcus is dead. Officially, anyway. They actually know (thanks to a code set up by Marcus ten years ago in a fit of paranoia) that he's alive out there somewhere, and while they worry, they also, by this point, know he can take care of himself. They just wish he would call SOMEHOW.
DR. LILLIANNE "LILLY" LOXLEY: Marcus' younger sister. She's become a Megacorp doctor. Also knows Marcus is alive, though she outwardly pretends otherwise. Marcus keeps track of her to make sure she doesn't get into danger through the Megacorp she works for. She likes to volunteer at a dog shelter, as well as clinics for the homeless, though more and more of the latter are running out of funding these days.
MARIANNE WINTERS: A fellow child-soldier and childhood friend of Marcus'. She's an assassin, a profession that Marcus always tried not to judge her too harshly for. While he knew she took some sketchy jobs, he eventually found out she took a particularly unsavory job from a Megacorp (that paid LOADS) and the two had a falling out. She's largely inactive now, due to being filthy rich and the Megacorps interest in using their own in-house black-ops wetworks teams, but she hasn't put away her bow quite yet. May or may not have a moral compass.
PAUL ROBERTS: A fellow survivor of the George Program, one who Marcus thought he killed. He had a certain Dr. Emily visit him, anonymously, so he should be healed of the old injuries he sustained from his childhood, but the man has a family, so he probably never touched a bow again. At least, Marcus hopes so. To this day, he refuses to contact Paul, to keep Paul safe.
FATHER ORWELL - Thoroughly dead, Marcus' childhood captor still terrorizes the dark corner of his mind. While Marcus KNOWS the man is dead for good, there will always be a paranoia that somewhere, a malevolent clone escaped.
EMMA "DEVANA" - Marcus' former sidekick, a child soldier he rescued from an Orwell camp as an adult. He mentored her in the ways of non-lethality and convinced her not to become the weapon Orwell had trained them both to be. She's still active, though Marcus and her parted ways over ten years ago, mostly due to her desire to make her own way and differentiate herself from his skillset.
JOHN "ALDOUS" FREEMAN - An aberrant clone of Orwell who Marcus spared, despite his paranoia. Aldous never caused Marcus regret, however, serving as a lonesome protector of the wilderness outside Shermingham, and at some point selling the rights to his brand of pickled onions to a Megacorp for a very sizable sum of money. As John got older, he donated most of his money to charities to help homeless youth and disappeared into the woods. He left Marcus a letter lining out his desire to live the last of his days in the serenity of nature, dying in a manner that he will not burden anyone, not even with funeral costs. Marcus decided to honor his subsequent request to not be tracked down, despite wanting confirmation that the Last Orwell was dead. In the letter, John left a coded message to Marcus: "Not in trouble, message genuine, thanks for everything."
EMILY "GUARDIAN ANGEL" LEXINGTON - An old friend and former sidekick of Marcus. A former agent of KNIGHT, Agent Lexington stayed active around Shermingham before running afoul of a Megacorp in the last ten years. She had to go dark, but Marcus has good reason to believe she's doing fine. She's resourceful.
SAM HUNTER - A friend of Marcus' whose brutal murder caused him to go on a revenge killing spree as Vigil decades past. During the Visitation, Marcus got to speak to him, and he tried to be more mindful of what Sam would want afterwards. That's gone out the window in the last five years, though. Marcus has decided he'll answer to Sam once the world is safer for the children of tomorrow.
OLD MAN JOE JENKINS - An old hermit who had a ranch outside Shermingham, he became like family to Marcus, who he let stay on his land in a shack. Marcus still remembers him fondly, and keeps a plaque in The Hollow to his honor. Passed decades ago.
ABSALOM AVERY - The civilian identity of the hero Watchman, Marcus and Absalom had an odd chemistry. Despite looking very much up to Absalom (on the verge of affection), Marcus could never let him get too close, and avoided the man on multiple occasions in the last twenty years, believing that Absalom was probably better off. Sure would be a shame if he tragically died, murdered by the Megacorps, wouldn't it, Marcus?
NICK URIAS - A close friend of Marcus', despite what Marcus would pretend in public when the two were together. Marcus always felt at ease around Nick, who was one of the few people he felt understood being a weird eccentric hobo survivalist. He visited The Hollow semi-regularly during Marcus' recovery, until he disappeared abruptly a year ago. That has Marcus very concerned. Sure, Nick would disappear off the grid for months on end, but a full year? Hopefully he was just sleeping off the hangover of the century... Hopefully.
#HERO - A hacker who Marcus worked with prior to Armageddon, and even a little while after. They never quite forgave him for becoming a millionaire, since they hate them (almost) unconditionally, but that was remedied by how short-lived his "fortune" was. They mailed him a "My Condolences" card when his finances sank low, which gave Marcus one of his five Hearty Chuckles of the year. They were on good terms, but Marcus hasn't heard from her in a while. Last he knew, she was being tracked by a Megacorp hacking team formed specifically to take her out. Marcus helped by waterboarding one of them in a toilet until they gave up some info on their teammates. After he delivered that info, she's been dark.
MARIA "COYOTE" BEZOS - Maria's kids know him as Uncle Vigil. One Halloween he ambushed them mid-prank with a carton of eggs. When they started trying to smoke as teens he'd consistently steal their packs of cigarettes. Then there was the time they were drinking moonshine and he broke out the good ol' Voice Modulator + Hologram and Smoke Arrow combo, becoming THE UNDERAGED DRINKING WRAITH. One time when they were six he showed up wearing trashbags and jumped out of a dumpster. Fun times.
Marcus would sometimes coordinate with Maria to help her commune get resources, as well as to sometimes trade for resources for The Hollow. She knows he has one but hasn't visited unless she ever would have needed to. He hasn't visited in the last five years, and but he's let her know she's still alive, despite the news stating otherwise. She's faked her death before, she shouldn't judge.
CASEY "THE ROCK" CANE: They were part of the superhero team Rock 'n' Robin for three years. They stopped a Mega Tank Drone of Tank-Man's once (the only of its kind seen since Tank-Man's disappearance), Cobra King six and a half times (he gave up early on the third one due to a stomach flu), the Slammoth once (that was a fun one), a small-scale war against the Red Reaper for four months (Marcus really hated bullet wounds by the end of that), Balloon Man once ("We don't talk about Balloon Man"), one barfight with Lonestar, three confrontations with Jackhammer, and a dozen minor one time villains. Despite the productivity of their career, Marcus called it off when he ran out of funds to support it. He let Casey keep the supercar, which was modified so that he could drive it. The second year of their team-up, Marcus gave him the most valuable gift of all; a modified, reinforced toilet that Casey could never break.
THE COBRA KING: Marcus has tried to get Cobra King on the straight and narrow about five different times, but they always ended up back out in public, waving snakes at innocent people. Their last encounter, Marcus stole the Cobra King's armored suit, which is still on display in The Hollow's museum.
LUX - She may or may not have married Marcus' old sidekick. Marcus views her like an rambunctious niece. He tries to keep track of her to make sure she's not in over her head with the Megacorps, despite her being more physically capable in a fight than him at this point.
DONNA DIAMANTE - Don Diamante's daughter, a 25 year old former manager of a Megacorps construction team. When she found out the Megacorp was cutting corners and jeopardizing the quality (and safety, but whatever) of her work, she demanded her bosses commit resources to fix the faults in the projects they built. When they tried to fire her instead, she tried to make off with construction drones and resources. When they sent a strike team to "reclaim" their property, she shot diamond shards from her fists and killed them. Prior to then, it was unknown to the megacorp that she had any type of superpower similar to her father. Don Diamante called in a favor, tracked down Vigil, and gave him a choice; help hide his daughter or FACE THE WRATH OF THE DON. After a pause, Marcus chuckled at the joke (a cool guy like the Don would NEVER actually threaten someone with blackmail) and assured the Don he had nothing to worry about. She's been at the Hollow for Six years, and her expertise has been invaluable in constructing new underground rooms for the complex. She can shoot diamond shards from her wrists, has diamond bones, and slightly-above human strength. Her dad helped her hide her superhuman abilities for most her life. She's shrewd, cold, but loyal to Vigil for giving her a place to stay and resources to practice her passion, construction. She also respects his commitment to developing quality concretes.
TRIVIA TREVOR - A man in a flashy besequined suit adorned with red exclamation marks, sporting gelled spiky red hair, pointy goattee, and a pair of LED lined shutter shades. Trevor is an odd look into what qualifies as a "dangerous supervillain" in the eyes of the Megacorps. Denied funding for his gameshow ideas, Trevor established an off-the-grid studio, seized control of several cable channels, and put on a ritzy call-in trivia show, showing at 7 PM (in central time), three times a week, for three weeks. Then the Megacorps finally tracked him down. The raid team destroyed his studio, equipment, and shot off his right leg with a combat shotgun. On air. All info about his show and the broadcasts were subsequently suppressed on social media. That would have been the end of Trevor, if the armored vehicle transporting him and several other 'super' individuals hadn't been stopped by a certain Vigil. He joined Marcus' commune in 2040, and established himself as a curator of the various gear and weapons of supervillains and superheroes that Marcus had seized from the Megacorps, deeming it "America's True Superhero (And Villain) Museum!" Marcus tolerates the museum as long as Trevor continues to maintain the gear and agrees to NEVER advertise its location. Trevor, nervous of being shotgunned by the Megacorp again, agreed. Trevor is actually a "super" individual, but, strangely, his powers seem to be super-exact memory, super-graphic design, and a strange type of super-engineering - he can prototype and produce gameshow equipment and tacky museum displays at an astonishing speed. He is extremely loyal to Vigil, but also really liked his stint as The Robin. He is the only defender of the The Robin's Tactical Combat Shorts.
THE STEEL ARM- Jessica Coles was a scientist specializing in bionic prosthetics under megacorp control. She grew increasingly unsatisfied with her work only helping the wealthy, until pictures of former child laborers in the Megacorp's factories abroad drove her over the edge. The children were filthy, suffering, and many of them missing limbs from working with dangerous equipment. Those who were unable to work were left to die. She stole a bunch of fabrication equipment, designed an armored combat suit with an intimidating left arm capable of generating energy shields and crushing metal, and set about establishing a lab off the grid to help the children. She was ready when the corporate strike team came, evacuating the children, and being ready to die standing for what she believed in. What she wasn't ready for was to be taken alive, informed she'd be brainchipped and forced to use her skills for the company again, and that they'd make her watch as the children she wanted to help were tracked down and apprehended for "stealing company property." She was flown back to the States and put on an armored transport to a secure facility, until Vigil stopped it. She joined with the requirement that Vigil helps her continue her work developing bionics. Marcus couldn't go too far abroad at this point, but he did also offer to save any of the children she helped that made it stateside.
Jessica is a super-engineer, but is much more skilled than Marcus. She lost her left arm in the raid, but she just laughed at that as she prototyped a temporary replacement, to Marcus' deep concern. By now, she has a prosthetic that matches the capabilities of her armored exo-suit, and is smaller, to boot. She has general training in handling pistols. Tall, African American, with long braids, green eyes, and generally wears some semblance of an armored suit. She appreciates when newcomers wonder if she's human or machine, always getting a good laugh out of it.
JAN "THE ROGUE DOCTOR" VARRA - a 23 year old 'supervillain' who was busted by the megacorps for practicing medicine without a license. Jan was trying to help the poor and those without health insurance, in direct opposition to the Megacorps. As such, she was rewarded by being brutally apprehended by the Megacorps, losing her ability to walk. Marcus saved her from the same transport as Jessica and Trevor. He's helped build her a spider-mech wheelchair, into which Jessica has helped integrate a bunch of medical equipment. Jan is highly skilled in medicine, having a specialty of improvising solutions with limited supplies, but she also possesses the ability to, slowly, mend muscle tissue by touching and focusing upon it. She can't regenerate grievous wounds and is no Dr. Emily, but it also soothes pain, which is an effect she relies upon more than anything. Her "supervillain" costume was a doctor coat and a bandana across her face. She's not the most creative.
BARKFACE 3: SON OF BARKFACE - A furtive looking man, who appears to be the fusion of a tree and a human, who claims to have grown from a seed of the original Barkface. No, he insisted, not like a sperm seed, a plant seed. All he wants to do is be left alone, but unfortunately, upon emerging from a plant cocoon, he ran afoul of a megacorp, which wanted to dissect and study him. After a destructive encounter, they captured him and tried to ship him to a blacksite, but Vigil stopped the truck. He has the ability to amplify and control plant growth. In trade for Vigil providing him with a greenhouse and leaving him alone, he helps grow food for the Hollow. He doesn't really talk to anyone, but sometimes shows up for community events.
MEKK - A non-binary individual who prefers to wear hooded jackets. They haven't shared much of their past, only that they were a supervillain who believed that robotics could topple the megacorporations, and they tried to do so with an army of scorpion-robots, attacking a Megacorps headquarters. The attack lasted ten minutes, and didn't even make the news. It wasn't for lack of capability, the scorpion-bots did mass property damage, but the Megacorp-funded robots had both superior funding and numbers on their side. Mekk was taken in and sent to a blacksite to be brain-chipped and forced to work in a corp robotics division. Fortunately, Vigil saved them. Mekk is jaded now, no longer believes one robot army alone can topple the megacorps. However, they are grateful to Marcus for saving them and allowing them to retain their sense of self, something they HIGHLY value. Mekk works with Marcus and the other scientists on various projects, but generally focuses on producing sleek, subtle drones to patrol the surrounding countryside for Megacorps presence, as well as working on a suite of mechanical guards to defend the Hollow from a possible attack.
NEON - Leader of a group of refugees, mostly orphaned children, sick, and disabled, who were seeking a place to live safe from the Megacorps. Marcus agreed to take them in. Neon herself is Korean-American, deaf, and proudly gay. Marcus has been learning sign to communicate with her. She's a super, her ability is to amplify light from light sources. This doesn't sound too useful, but it means she can use a small flashlight to blind her enemies. She is adept with assault rifles and 3D printing guns, but dreams of a day when guns will no longer be needed. She's also been learning the bow, from Marcus, in order to hunt more quietly, though she has no intention to be a combat archer.
KIT "MELLOW" LYN - A physical therapist who went on the run when a megacorp learned she's a super. Her only ability is to dampen the emotions of those around her, granting them a relaxed calm, but she's worried of what would happen if this power was abused. She showed up three years ago, and, upon learning of Marcus' situation, dedicated most of her time to helping him rehabilitate, despite his insistence that he didn't need it. She only has a "super" name because Neon gave it to her and she thinks it's cute, but isn't really interested in any superheroics. It went poorly when Trevor suggested a tie-dye cape.
SHORTWAVE - Not a part of the Hollow, rather, part of the Rainbow Network, an anti-corp underground coalition. Marcus knows him from when he used to be a greasy, anti-government libertarian. Marcus is pretty sure he only fights the corps to become a sovereign citizen, but whatever, you need all the resources you can get nowadays. Not a super, but a former information broker with plenty of connections. Likes crypto-currencies, and is an avid vaper, despite having to have gotten a synthetic lung installed after the onset of 'popcorn lung.' His pop culture tastes are very much stuck in the mid 00's and early 10's.
SIR ROBIN, THE GENTLEMAN THIEF - AKA "Dog!" One of the first instances of a superpowered animal Marcus knows of, Sir Robin is a somewhat portly Boston Terrier with the super power of selective intangibility, being capable of passing through obstacles and people at will. He uses this ability mostly to go where ever he pleases. Marcus would find this fascinating if not for the fact that the dog has used this ability to make himself at home in The Hollow. He just... Showed up one day. He seems to have some sort of enhanced intelligence, as well, because he doesn't eat things poisonous to dogs and has deftly avoided any and all traps Marcus set for it. At this point, Marcus has given up and mostly accepted that the dog will stick around, he just wishes that Jan didn't name him after Robin Hood. And that the dog would stop phasing into the Quiver at night to fart.
"Stop feeding Robin hardboiled eggs, Trevor."
"But he loves them SO MUCH!"
"HE ALSO LOVES FARTING IN MY ROOM"
LEON AND CAMILLA LOXLEY: Marcus's parents. Not too notable, they're under the belief that Marcus is dead. Officially, anyway. They actually know (thanks to a code set up by Marcus ten years ago in a fit of paranoia) that he's alive out there somewhere, and while they worry, they also, by this point, know he can take care of himself. They just wish he would call SOMEHOW.
DR. LILLIANNE "LILLY" LOXLEY: Marcus' younger sister. She's become a Megacorp doctor. Also knows Marcus is alive, though she outwardly pretends otherwise. Marcus keeps track of her to make sure she doesn't get into danger through the Megacorp she works for. She likes to volunteer at a dog shelter, as well as clinics for the homeless, though more and more of the latter are running out of funding these days.
MARIANNE WINTERS: A fellow child-soldier and childhood friend of Marcus'. She's an assassin, a profession that Marcus always tried not to judge her too harshly for. While he knew she took some sketchy jobs, he eventually found out she took a particularly unsavory job from a Megacorp (that paid LOADS) and the two had a falling out. She's largely inactive now, due to being filthy rich and the Megacorps interest in using their own in-house black-ops wetworks teams, but she hasn't put away her bow quite yet. May or may not have a moral compass.
PAUL ROBERTS: A fellow survivor of the George Program, one who Marcus thought he killed. He had a certain Dr. Emily visit him, anonymously, so he should be healed of the old injuries he sustained from his childhood, but the man has a family, so he probably never touched a bow again. At least, Marcus hopes so. To this day, he refuses to contact Paul, to keep Paul safe.
FATHER ORWELL - Thoroughly dead, Marcus' childhood captor still terrorizes the dark corner of his mind. While Marcus KNOWS the man is dead for good, there will always be a paranoia that somewhere, a malevolent clone escaped.
EMMA "DEVANA" - Marcus' former sidekick, a child soldier he rescued from an Orwell camp as an adult. He mentored her in the ways of non-lethality and convinced her not to become the weapon Orwell had trained them both to be. She's still active, though Marcus and her parted ways over ten years ago, mostly due to her desire to make her own way and differentiate herself from his skillset.
JOHN "ALDOUS" FREEMAN - An aberrant clone of Orwell who Marcus spared, despite his paranoia. Aldous never caused Marcus regret, however, serving as a lonesome protector of the wilderness outside Shermingham, and at some point selling the rights to his brand of pickled onions to a Megacorp for a very sizable sum of money. As John got older, he donated most of his money to charities to help homeless youth and disappeared into the woods. He left Marcus a letter lining out his desire to live the last of his days in the serenity of nature, dying in a manner that he will not burden anyone, not even with funeral costs. Marcus decided to honor his subsequent request to not be tracked down, despite wanting confirmation that the Last Orwell was dead. In the letter, John left a coded message to Marcus: "Not in trouble, message genuine, thanks for everything."
EMILY "GUARDIAN ANGEL" LEXINGTON - An old friend and former sidekick of Marcus. A former agent of KNIGHT, Agent Lexington stayed active around Shermingham before running afoul of a Megacorp in the last ten years. She had to go dark, but Marcus has good reason to believe she's doing fine. She's resourceful.
SAM HUNTER - A friend of Marcus' whose brutal murder caused him to go on a revenge killing spree as Vigil decades past. During the Visitation, Marcus got to speak to him, and he tried to be more mindful of what Sam would want afterwards. That's gone out the window in the last five years, though. Marcus has decided he'll answer to Sam once the world is safer for the children of tomorrow.
OLD MAN JOE JENKINS - An old hermit who had a ranch outside Shermingham, he became like family to Marcus, who he let stay on his land in a shack. Marcus still remembers him fondly, and keeps a plaque in The Hollow to his honor. Passed decades ago.
ABSALOM AVERY - The civilian identity of the hero Watchman, Marcus and Absalom had an odd chemistry. Despite looking very much up to Absalom (on the verge of affection), Marcus could never let him get too close, and avoided the man on multiple occasions in the last twenty years, believing that Absalom was probably better off. Sure would be a shame if he tragically died, murdered by the Megacorps, wouldn't it, Marcus?
NICK URIAS - A close friend of Marcus', despite what Marcus would pretend in public when the two were together. Marcus always felt at ease around Nick, who was one of the few people he felt understood being a weird eccentric hobo survivalist. He visited The Hollow semi-regularly during Marcus' recovery, until he disappeared abruptly a year ago. That has Marcus very concerned. Sure, Nick would disappear off the grid for months on end, but a full year? Hopefully he was just sleeping off the hangover of the century... Hopefully.
#HERO - A hacker who Marcus worked with prior to Armageddon, and even a little while after. They never quite forgave him for becoming a millionaire, since they hate them (almost) unconditionally, but that was remedied by how short-lived his "fortune" was. They mailed him a "My Condolences" card when his finances sank low, which gave Marcus one of his five Hearty Chuckles of the year. They were on good terms, but Marcus hasn't heard from her in a while. Last he knew, she was being tracked by a Megacorp hacking team formed specifically to take her out. Marcus helped by waterboarding one of them in a toilet until they gave up some info on their teammates. After he delivered that info, she's been dark.
MARIA "COYOTE" BEZOS - Maria's kids know him as Uncle Vigil. One Halloween he ambushed them mid-prank with a carton of eggs. When they started trying to smoke as teens he'd consistently steal their packs of cigarettes. Then there was the time they were drinking moonshine and he broke out the good ol' Voice Modulator + Hologram and Smoke Arrow combo, becoming THE UNDERAGED DRINKING WRAITH. One time when they were six he showed up wearing trashbags and jumped out of a dumpster. Fun times.
Marcus would sometimes coordinate with Maria to help her commune get resources, as well as to sometimes trade for resources for The Hollow. She knows he has one but hasn't visited unless she ever would have needed to. He hasn't visited in the last five years, and but he's let her know she's still alive, despite the news stating otherwise. She's faked her death before, she shouldn't judge.
CASEY "THE ROCK" CANE: They were part of the superhero team Rock 'n' Robin for three years. They stopped a Mega Tank Drone of Tank-Man's once (the only of its kind seen since Tank-Man's disappearance), Cobra King six and a half times (he gave up early on the third one due to a stomach flu), the Slammoth once (that was a fun one), a small-scale war against the Red Reaper for four months (Marcus really hated bullet wounds by the end of that), Balloon Man once ("We don't talk about Balloon Man"), one barfight with Lonestar, three confrontations with Jackhammer, and a dozen minor one time villains. Despite the productivity of their career, Marcus called it off when he ran out of funds to support it. He let Casey keep the supercar, which was modified so that he could drive it. The second year of their team-up, Marcus gave him the most valuable gift of all; a modified, reinforced toilet that Casey could never break.
THE COBRA KING: Marcus has tried to get Cobra King on the straight and narrow about five different times, but they always ended up back out in public, waving snakes at innocent people. Their last encounter, Marcus stole the Cobra King's armored suit, which is still on display in The Hollow's museum.
LUX - She may or may not have married Marcus' old sidekick. Marcus views her like an rambunctious niece. He tries to keep track of her to make sure she's not in over her head with the Megacorps, despite her being more physically capable in a fight than him at this point.
DONNA DIAMANTE - Don Diamante's daughter, a 25 year old former manager of a Megacorps construction team. When she found out the Megacorp was cutting corners and jeopardizing the quality (and safety, but whatever) of her work, she demanded her bosses commit resources to fix the faults in the projects they built. When they tried to fire her instead, she tried to make off with construction drones and resources. When they sent a strike team to "reclaim" their property, she shot diamond shards from her fists and killed them. Prior to then, it was unknown to the megacorp that she had any type of superpower similar to her father. Don Diamante called in a favor, tracked down Vigil, and gave him a choice; help hide his daughter or FACE THE WRATH OF THE DON. After a pause, Marcus chuckled at the joke (a cool guy like the Don would NEVER actually threaten someone with blackmail) and assured the Don he had nothing to worry about. She's been at the Hollow for Six years, and her expertise has been invaluable in constructing new underground rooms for the complex. She can shoot diamond shards from her wrists, has diamond bones, and slightly-above human strength. Her dad helped her hide her superhuman abilities for most her life. She's shrewd, cold, but loyal to Vigil for giving her a place to stay and resources to practice her passion, construction. She also respects his commitment to developing quality concretes.
TRIVIA TREVOR - A man in a flashy besequined suit adorned with red exclamation marks, sporting gelled spiky red hair, pointy goattee, and a pair of LED lined shutter shades. Trevor is an odd look into what qualifies as a "dangerous supervillain" in the eyes of the Megacorps. Denied funding for his gameshow ideas, Trevor established an off-the-grid studio, seized control of several cable channels, and put on a ritzy call-in trivia show, showing at 7 PM (in central time), three times a week, for three weeks. Then the Megacorps finally tracked him down. The raid team destroyed his studio, equipment, and shot off his right leg with a combat shotgun. On air. All info about his show and the broadcasts were subsequently suppressed on social media. That would have been the end of Trevor, if the armored vehicle transporting him and several other 'super' individuals hadn't been stopped by a certain Vigil. He joined Marcus' commune in 2040, and established himself as a curator of the various gear and weapons of supervillains and superheroes that Marcus had seized from the Megacorps, deeming it "America's True Superhero (And Villain) Museum!" Marcus tolerates the museum as long as Trevor continues to maintain the gear and agrees to NEVER advertise its location. Trevor, nervous of being shotgunned by the Megacorp again, agreed. Trevor is actually a "super" individual, but, strangely, his powers seem to be super-exact memory, super-graphic design, and a strange type of super-engineering - he can prototype and produce gameshow equipment and tacky museum displays at an astonishing speed. He is extremely loyal to Vigil, but also really liked his stint as The Robin. He is the only defender of the The Robin's Tactical Combat Shorts.
THE STEEL ARM- Jessica Coles was a scientist specializing in bionic prosthetics under megacorp control. She grew increasingly unsatisfied with her work only helping the wealthy, until pictures of former child laborers in the Megacorp's factories abroad drove her over the edge. The children were filthy, suffering, and many of them missing limbs from working with dangerous equipment. Those who were unable to work were left to die. She stole a bunch of fabrication equipment, designed an armored combat suit with an intimidating left arm capable of generating energy shields and crushing metal, and set about establishing a lab off the grid to help the children. She was ready when the corporate strike team came, evacuating the children, and being ready to die standing for what she believed in. What she wasn't ready for was to be taken alive, informed she'd be brainchipped and forced to use her skills for the company again, and that they'd make her watch as the children she wanted to help were tracked down and apprehended for "stealing company property." She was flown back to the States and put on an armored transport to a secure facility, until Vigil stopped it. She joined with the requirement that Vigil helps her continue her work developing bionics. Marcus couldn't go too far abroad at this point, but he did also offer to save any of the children she helped that made it stateside.
Jessica is a super-engineer, but is much more skilled than Marcus. She lost her left arm in the raid, but she just laughed at that as she prototyped a temporary replacement, to Marcus' deep concern. By now, she has a prosthetic that matches the capabilities of her armored exo-suit, and is smaller, to boot. She has general training in handling pistols. Tall, African American, with long braids, green eyes, and generally wears some semblance of an armored suit. She appreciates when newcomers wonder if she's human or machine, always getting a good laugh out of it.
JAN "THE ROGUE DOCTOR" VARRA - a 23 year old 'supervillain' who was busted by the megacorps for practicing medicine without a license. Jan was trying to help the poor and those without health insurance, in direct opposition to the Megacorps. As such, she was rewarded by being brutally apprehended by the Megacorps, losing her ability to walk. Marcus saved her from the same transport as Jessica and Trevor. He's helped build her a spider-mech wheelchair, into which Jessica has helped integrate a bunch of medical equipment. Jan is highly skilled in medicine, having a specialty of improvising solutions with limited supplies, but she also possesses the ability to, slowly, mend muscle tissue by touching and focusing upon it. She can't regenerate grievous wounds and is no Dr. Emily, but it also soothes pain, which is an effect she relies upon more than anything. Her "supervillain" costume was a doctor coat and a bandana across her face. She's not the most creative.
BARKFACE 3: SON OF BARKFACE - A furtive looking man, who appears to be the fusion of a tree and a human, who claims to have grown from a seed of the original Barkface. No, he insisted, not like a sperm seed, a plant seed. All he wants to do is be left alone, but unfortunately, upon emerging from a plant cocoon, he ran afoul of a megacorp, which wanted to dissect and study him. After a destructive encounter, they captured him and tried to ship him to a blacksite, but Vigil stopped the truck. He has the ability to amplify and control plant growth. In trade for Vigil providing him with a greenhouse and leaving him alone, he helps grow food for the Hollow. He doesn't really talk to anyone, but sometimes shows up for community events.
MEKK - A non-binary individual who prefers to wear hooded jackets. They haven't shared much of their past, only that they were a supervillain who believed that robotics could topple the megacorporations, and they tried to do so with an army of scorpion-robots, attacking a Megacorps headquarters. The attack lasted ten minutes, and didn't even make the news. It wasn't for lack of capability, the scorpion-bots did mass property damage, but the Megacorp-funded robots had both superior funding and numbers on their side. Mekk was taken in and sent to a blacksite to be brain-chipped and forced to work in a corp robotics division. Fortunately, Vigil saved them. Mekk is jaded now, no longer believes one robot army alone can topple the megacorps. However, they are grateful to Marcus for saving them and allowing them to retain their sense of self, something they HIGHLY value. Mekk works with Marcus and the other scientists on various projects, but generally focuses on producing sleek, subtle drones to patrol the surrounding countryside for Megacorps presence, as well as working on a suite of mechanical guards to defend the Hollow from a possible attack.
NEON - Leader of a group of refugees, mostly orphaned children, sick, and disabled, who were seeking a place to live safe from the Megacorps. Marcus agreed to take them in. Neon herself is Korean-American, deaf, and proudly gay. Marcus has been learning sign to communicate with her. She's a super, her ability is to amplify light from light sources. This doesn't sound too useful, but it means she can use a small flashlight to blind her enemies. She is adept with assault rifles and 3D printing guns, but dreams of a day when guns will no longer be needed. She's also been learning the bow, from Marcus, in order to hunt more quietly, though she has no intention to be a combat archer.
KIT "MELLOW" LYN - A physical therapist who went on the run when a megacorp learned she's a super. Her only ability is to dampen the emotions of those around her, granting them a relaxed calm, but she's worried of what would happen if this power was abused. She showed up three years ago, and, upon learning of Marcus' situation, dedicated most of her time to helping him rehabilitate, despite his insistence that he didn't need it. She only has a "super" name because Neon gave it to her and she thinks it's cute, but isn't really interested in any superheroics. It went poorly when Trevor suggested a tie-dye cape.
SHORTWAVE - Not a part of the Hollow, rather, part of the Rainbow Network, an anti-corp underground coalition. Marcus knows him from when he used to be a greasy, anti-government libertarian. Marcus is pretty sure he only fights the corps to become a sovereign citizen, but whatever, you need all the resources you can get nowadays. Not a super, but a former information broker with plenty of connections. Likes crypto-currencies, and is an avid vaper, despite having to have gotten a synthetic lung installed after the onset of 'popcorn lung.' His pop culture tastes are very much stuck in the mid 00's and early 10's.
SIR ROBIN, THE GENTLEMAN THIEF - AKA "Dog!" One of the first instances of a superpowered animal Marcus knows of, Sir Robin is a somewhat portly Boston Terrier with the super power of selective intangibility, being capable of passing through obstacles and people at will. He uses this ability mostly to go where ever he pleases. Marcus would find this fascinating if not for the fact that the dog has used this ability to make himself at home in The Hollow. He just... Showed up one day. He seems to have some sort of enhanced intelligence, as well, because he doesn't eat things poisonous to dogs and has deftly avoided any and all traps Marcus set for it. At this point, Marcus has given up and mostly accepted that the dog will stick around, he just wishes that Jan didn't name him after Robin Hood. And that the dog would stop phasing into the Quiver at night to fart.
"Stop feeding Robin hardboiled eggs, Trevor."
"But he loves them SO MUCH!"
"HE ALSO LOVES FARTING IN MY ROOM"