Current
I am going to smuggle wholesomeness into your RPs and there's not a damned thing any of you can do to stop me.
5
likes
3 yrs ago
"Bud, you're like a pizza cutter; All edge and no point!"
6
likes
3 yrs ago
Habanero ain't the spiciest pepper but it's pretty tasty on things, ya gotta admit.
2
likes
4 yrs ago
And in addition to boneless wings being overrated; Anybody who looks at sauced and tossed wings, lovingly spiced and perfectly crispy and says; 'I'mma dunk that in blue cheese' has missed the point.
February 7th; 1:33 PM Lycus Dorm, University of Poseidonis, Atlantis
Mal's eyes remained locked forward, still seemingly boring a hole straight through the wall where she'd been standing with the express intent of burning them and everything behind them for another three miles straight to the fucking ground. Even if the rest of his face remained entirely neutral the whole while.
After a long, dragging few seconds of silence the teen finally spoke, addressing his roommate still standing in the doorway without even looking up at him. His tone, though still outwardly calm, rapidly beginning to warp and twist into something far more malevolent.
It was sometimes easy to forget that, through all the jokes, laughter and banter, Malcolm was still a very angry young man, deep down inside. He just made a point of keeping it in check.
...Until someone pushed the right buttons, that is.
February 7th; 1:32 PM Lycus Dorm, University of Poseidonis, Atlantis
Whatever master plan Mal had been about to impart upon the blonde's pretty little noggin came to an abrupt halt as he registered the rattle of his bedroom door out of the corner of his eye, made silent by the device still mounted on the wall. The Kasimir ward instantly fell silent, leaning back onto his desk and hands folding neatly in front of him as his face took on a blank expression.
Idly, his eyes traveled down to his watch, where they lingered for a solid half-minute of increasingly tense silence before slowly knitting shut as he pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Five minutes..."
That low, growling whisper was barely audible over the sound of the biometric lock on his desk drawer disengaging and rolling out before the battle-scarred teen wordlessly stuck his free hand inside and fished out one of his old earpieces.
"We'll talk later." Malcolm stated flatly, reaching out and deftly dropping the thing into one of Karen's jacket pockets before she could get a word of protest in, though the glare he locked onto her right then and there probably would've done the job anyhow "But for now, you have some shopping to do, don't you?"
Though still as outwardly cold and collected as he'd been this entire time, the vast reserves of Mal's patience that had kept him (relatively) civil through this whole ordeal had very clearly just about run dry. The fact that the constant orange glow hidden away by his contact lenses had slowly begun to creep out back into plain sight, slowly snaking it's way up the blood-vessels in his eyes was only the most obvious clue.
Slowly folding his arms with a sense of calm and control that was beginning to look more and more forced as the seconds ticked by, the boy then casually gestured toward the door with his thumb.
February 7th; 1:31 PM Lycus Dorm, University of Poseidonis, Atlantis
"You do not get to extol me about your own common sense right now." Mal replied curtly. "You lost that luxury about ten minutes ago."
Lowering his hands to the desk he was leaning on, where they almost immediately began tapping against it's steel frame to the habitual tune of some beat he'd long forgotten the origin of, Mal cast another glance to the side, eyeballing Virgil through the wall again and weighing his options.
Part of him wanted to go out there, grab the guy by the collar and drag him in here for this kind of talk.
Another, more rational part of his psyche reminded him that a walking, talking tesla coil was not exactly the most subtle thing to bring to the table in a situation like this, where they didn't necessarily want to advertise with big neon signs 'HEY, EVERYBODY! THE BIG DAMNED HEROES ARE HERE!' if they wanted to find a lead they could pursue later.
...And another, quieter part of him was still just a little pissed that one of his closest friends hadn't spared a single thought of caution before wantonly foraging through his belongings with someone he barely knew.
What if they had actually found something? Sure, Virgil didn't care much about who knew about his gifts, but someone like Mal didn't exactly have that luxury, dammit.
Knitting his eyes shut and taking a long, controlled breath, the Watchdog of Bludhaven finally spoke.
February 7th; 1:31 PM Lycus Dorm, University of Poseidonis, Atlantis
For his part, Mal just stared Karen down in silence as she explained herself, arms crossed head tilted slightly to the side and a look in his eyes advertising very clearly that the young Latina was going to have to try just a little harder to regain his trust after a stunt like that.
But had he any intention of arguing any further with her, he didn't show it, as his brows furrowed at what exactly the blonde was telling him led her down this course of action. An only semi-voluntary hum rattling in his throat as his eyes momentarily shifted toward the sound-proofing device he'd fished out of his toolkit and slapped on the wall as his roommates were shown out, before his vision shifted to give both men a once-over through the wall, to see if they were trying to listen in or not, still more than a little annoyed for their part in this whole invasion of his privacy.
"Where?" Mal asked in that familiar tone that only really made itself known when he was 'working'. "And when?"
February 7th; 1:27 PM Lycus Dorm, University of Poseidonis, Atlantis
Mal's brow twitched again as Karen not only heaved the heavy duffel-bag, lined with armoured plate, stitched with prometheum-based fibres and kept shut by a padlock with a built-in biometric scanner with the express intention of keeping people out of it onto his bed... but then went ahead and opened it.
The boy took a long breath to calm himself. He could already feel a storm of a headache coming on.
'Clearly going to have to reset who has access to my shit after this...'
Stepping forward and setting his bag down on the counter of the communal kitchen, Mal's eyes shifted slowly, deliberately between the Dakotan and the Norwegian before resting on Karen again. Head tilting to the side slightly as he spoke again with that same razor sharp tone.
"Could you two give us a minute? I think I need to have a word or two with our Kare-Bear here..."
February 7th; 1:26 PM Lycus Dorm, University of Poseidonis, Atlantis
It had been a good day.
Mal had been out for a little venture about the town; doing some work at the gym to pay Persephone back for breaking so much of her equipment, catching up with old friends he'd made- both former Vanguard employees who'd stuck around below the waves after their official duties had ended and a few of the locals he'd met and worked with in those days. Wandered the bazaar for a bit. Picked up some groceries on the way home...
All in all, it had been a good day.
Which is quite perplexing how we now find Mal, standing in the now open doorway of his dorm. Grocery bag gripped in one hand while the other still remained wrapped around the coral door-handle, seemingly gripping it so tightly that it'd make one wonder why it hadn't snapped under the force and watching the trio sorting through his personal affects with all the grace and tact of a bull in a china shop.
His brow twitched.
It had been a good day.
"Oh, hey." The boy finally spoke after a moment of silence, loud enough to get the attention of the assembled interlopers. Calm, but with a peculiar edge to it. "So..."
His tone was a recognizable sign to those who knew him that he was more than a little angry about what was going on here.
As was the uncharacteristic unfriendly smile that accompanied it.
"Mind telling me what the honest-to-god fuck you're all doing?"
The boy cocked a brow at Karen's words, but didn't let his trademarked smirk falter as he responded.
"Well, can't fault you on that. You know more than anyone I'm not exactly the world's greatest authority on having a decent sleep schedule." Mal replied as the blonde lamented her hard time getting some shut eye, though his head tilted to the side slightly at her apparent surprise that he hadn't let up at all in his exercise routine, fixing her with an expression ‘Really?’ ”...And this is the only body I have. So whether I’m working or not, I might as well keep it in working order.”
And to be fair, it wasn’t like he was really following his usual routine.
...He didn’t have a sparring partner, or a building to jump off of, after all.
”Yeah,” she said, folding her arms.
Moving to the short flight of stairs at the entrance of her dormitory, she cautiously sat down on them as if she might accidentally fall back into a deep pit if she wasn’t careful. Staring up at Malcolm, she gestured for him to sit.
”Human bodies really do require a lot of maintenance, don’t they?” she muttered, shaking her head. ”Constant cleaning, constant eating, constant sleeping, among other annoying things, just to keep something so fragile running.”
A slight snort escaped the lad at that.
”You make it sound like a chore.” Malcolm noted, taking the offered seat beside her and allowing his gym bag to flop to the ground in front of him with a definite thud. ”...But I don’t particularly recall you ever complaining when I was grilling lobster tails for ya... and I certainly don’t recall you having any gripes about passing out on my couch, snuggled up with the dogs.”
The boy shot her another quirked brow as he reached into his bag and pulled out two cans of somesort of Atlantean post-workout drink, dropping one in her lap in a show of ‘Just drink it, damn you.’
”You could forego hygiene though, if ya really wanted… but I’d be the first to tell you that ‘Dreadlocks and no Teeth’ would be a pretty bad look for you.”
Karen twisted the cap, listening to the hiss of the air escaping with a slight frown. ”You act like I can’t eat good food when I want to as Lady Arcana,” she noted.
”Do you?” Mal interjected
She glanced over to him. ”Well...no, I don’t suppose I have. Not since I haven’t had to pretend I was an adult, at least.”
Mal just kinda stared at her at that, Kasimir brow raised in full force but saying nothing.
Until finally-
”Karen- When was the last time you actually ate something?” It was worded as a question, but for all intents and purposes may as well have been an accusation.
Karen blinked at his question, briefly glancing up at the artificial twilight above. Of course, the answer was the same as just about everything to do with her having a normal, human life. ”...About eight months ago.”
She hadn’t eaten all day, now that she thought about it. She had been ignoring the slowly building ache in her gut this entire time.
”I was… too focused on settling in.”
That put a frown on Mal’s face, as he twisted the cap to his drink back on and set it down by his side. Resting his forehead in his hand for a second before settling on just pinching the bridge of his nose in lieu of an outright facepalm.
”...And am I going out on a limb here and assuming that you haven’t slept, moved or otherwise done anything that doesn’t immediately involve being the Wizard in eight months either?”
Karen shook her head. ”No. I’ve been staying in the Rock of Eternity, so I had no real need to do anything of the sort.”
After all, she had retreated there to get away from her life. Granted, she hadn’t intended to do so for eight months. Two or three weeks had been what was in her head at the time, she recalled. She had never been Lady Arcana for more than a day or two before that, and after the first month had passed she felt...different.
She felt numb.
”And in those eight months, you decided that sleeping, eating and being around other people was somehow below you?” The younger teen asked, brows raised.
Karen glanced down at her drink. ”...Yes. In a sense. I felt like such things were insignificant next to my duties.”
A low, eerily Zoey-like hum rattled in the boy’s throat at that as he stared his sister in all but name down. Karen might not recall it right now, but Mal’s memory was just as sharp Arcana’s, perhaps even moreso in some ways.
...And boy, did he remember that instant hostility he was met with when calling her over the scrying stone, though it would do no good to bring that up now.
”So, what made you decide it was time to pump the brakes, then?” He finally asked with a frown as he leaned back on the steps and his eyes turned upwards towards the artificial sky. ”...I know it couldn’t have been something like that insignificant talk you had with an insignificant guy like me.”
Karen returned his frown, looking away from him and the dormitory. She still hadn’t taken a sip from her drink yet. ”You said ‘what we become when we forget who we are is not worth the sacrifice’.”
”You saying that...it made me think,” she admitted, ”think about all the things that once mattered to me, but no longer did. I still refused to kill, but it was more about adhering to my personal doctrine rather than actually…caring.”
Karen then finally raised her drink and took a long gulp from the can. Swallowing the sugary drink with a heavy sigh, she continued. “After close to two weeks of dwelling on it, I realized that something had dramatically changed inside of me. By no longer caring about my own happiness, I ceased to care about the happiness of others. As long as I didn’t break my code, that was all that mattered.”
The boy’s eyes slowly found their way over to Karen, an unreadable expression coming across his features as she all but emptied out her heart right there in front of him. To his credit, it wasn’t the typical Kasimir brow or Zoey-ish, throaty hum that made up his reply, but rather the chorus of joints and the remnants of old bone-breaks crackling and popping as he calmly sat back up, wrapped a tired arm around the girl’s shoulder and gently pulled her close, resting his head against her own as he did so.
It really was impossible to stay mad at her.
”...Goddammit, Karen.” Malcolm finally stated, his voice somewhere between a laugh and an exhausted sigh. ”You are just the biggest pile of complications that ever was, ain’t’cha?”
For a brief moment, he simply stayed like that, before he finally released her with a gentle messing of her hair as he got to his feet with a slight grunt.
”Ya might wanna save that drink for later- on an empty stomach, you’ll be out cold in half an hour.” The Kasimir ward explained simply, rolling his shoulder in a familiar motion to relieve the pressure from an old injury from years back. ”And we’ve clearly got some things to do.”
Karen felt a distinct, fuzzy warmth in her chest when Malcolm laid his head against hers. It brought back memories of when they were kids; happy memories. She hadn’t felt a sensation like that since she withdrew to the Rock.
”Tonight?” she asked, glancing over to him. ”Aren’t most places closed by this hour?”
Granted, who knew if Atlantean society had the same rules or regulations that the surface did? ”And where exactly do you want to go?”
”When I was down here with Vanguard after the civil war, we had more than a few late nights. So we’d always wind up crawling back to the same restaurant after work to stuff our gullets so we could skip breakfast the next day.” Mal explained with a little shrug as he picked up his bag. ”One of our paramedics had the misfortune of falling head over heels in love with the owner, and, after jumping through a truly insane amount of legal hoops and laws that actually had to be written for the occasion, became Atlantis’ very first double-citizen when he married her.”
Mal shot Karen a wry grin at that, almost daring her to turn him down.
”So, incidentally, I have a lot of coupons that need redeeming. And a friend who just told me she hasn’t eaten in eight friggin’ months.”
Karen remained silent for a long moment, made all the more striking by the eerie stillness that permeated Atlantis at night. She would probably never get used to that--it just didn’t feel natural to her, the absence of weather despite technically being “outside”.
Shaking her head slowly, Karen stood. ”Alright. I can’t claim that I’m not hungry. Lead the way.”
In all honesty, her stomach ache was starting to get a little unbearable at this point. It would become a distraction if she didn’t do something about it.
A snort followed Karen’s acceptance of her culinary fate.
”Trust me, you’ll sound a lot less resigned about it once you taste Atlantean cuisine.” Mal explained offering out his hand to help Karen up ”I’m particularly fond of the strawberry shakes.”
What little hair he allowed to grow on his head still just slightly damp from hitting the showers after his workout, Mal silently trudged his way down the ethereally lit streets of Poseidonis towards the campus. Dressed far more casually than the norm- the jacket of his grey tracksuit open, gymbag slung over his shoulder and the lip of his Vanguard ballcap hiding a furrowed brow as he marched forward with trepidation concealed under years of practice towards the inevitable confrontation of his own making.
His powerful peepers quickly picked up on Karen's familiar figure, leaning up against the wall of her dormitory around his next turn.
'...Crap.'
This had been a lot easier over the scrying stone.
Just what the hell was he supposed to say?
Still, despite his doubts, the boy carried on without even a change in his gait. This conversation needed to happen- there was no way of getting around that. If not for Karen's sake, then his own.
"I choose to believe in Karen Hernandez."
The boy's own words from a few weeks back rattled around in his head. He had meant every word of it and still did. It was just a matter of getting her to believe that, too, a Herculean task in it's own right.
His feet moved on autopilot.
Goddamn, life was a lot easier back when his day to day routine was just defusing bombs and punching people in the face.
His feet came to a stop. It took the boy a half-second to realize that that was because he'd arrived at his destination, on the sidewalk and to his oldest friend's left, hand rising out of his pocket on habit to give her a little wave.
'Well, Mal. Time to nut up.'
"Mornin', Sunshine." The boy greeted with his usual little smirk, but much less volume, both due to the lingering fatigue of his workout and out of consideration for the girl's neighbours "Didn't wake ya, did I?"
Argos Gymnasium, University District, Poseidonis, January 26, 2345 hrs.
It was on days like today, where Mal was extremely grateful for the invention of the punching bag.
BANG! CACHINK! BANG-BANG! CACHINK!
Doubly so was Mal, over the rhythmic din of flesh slamming into the leather and the rattling of chains echoing across the all-but-deserted gymnasium, grateful that the Atlanteans saw the merits of having a big bag of animal flesh filled with sand and hanging from the ceiling for the purpose of beating the hell out of. Though honestly, how couldn't they? It made for decent cardio, helped you work on your form, got you used to the notion that the act of punching something wasn't necessarily the most comfortable way to pass the time, and of course, as Mal knew better than most-
-Was freaking great when you really needed to hit something.
BANG... BANG-BANG! CACHINK!
It had been a long day, even before he'd gotten onto the boat- A quick ride out to Blud before dawn to have his annual visit to an empty alleyway a little earlier than usual. Eating breakfast. Saying goodbye to Henry and the rest of the castle staff. Kissing his Ma on the cheek and meeting Anatoli and Irene down at an arcade by the waterfront, for one last hurrah before he boarded a big damned submarine for the city below the waves.
Meeting Virgil in there. Meeting Bjorn. Meeting the others after the long ride.
...Seeing Karen again.
BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG... BANG! CACHINK!
He had actually been hoping to see what may as well have been his big sister down here. That somewhere during their little tiff over the scrying stone, he just might've gotten through her magical little (at times) thick head. But... well...
"Well, I’m here now—I kept my promise. You shouldn’t have any complaints, right?”
Those words stuck in the boy's mind. His eidetic memory playing it over and over again with perfect clarity as if the blonde were standing next to him while his powerful brain systematically dissected and analyzed the small details of her pitch, body language and brain activity.
Discomfort.
Irritation.
A bit of frustration. More so than seemed entirely deserved for his routine foray into 'Mal's Storytime'...
BANG! BANG! BANG! CACHINK!
It painted a clear picture.
BANG!
Karen didn't want to be here.
BANG!
She didn't want to be away from her magic space rock.
BANG!
She didn't want to see him, or perhaps anyone else again.
It was all just... so inconvenient to her.
"URAAAAH!"
BANG! Pshhhh...
Malcolm would be lying if he said that didn't sting a little.
Had it the ability to do so, the bag, now split open and spilling it's contents onto the gymnasium floor- would have agreed wholeheartedly.
"Oh, fer..."
The scarred boy managed out under a frustrated sigh, as the piling sand at his feet abruptly pulled him from whatever place he'd been inside his own head and he began peeling off his hand-wraps with his teeth- This line of thinking wasn't helping; just assuming what was going on in the blonde's head and then getting mad about it. Despite how easy it was to fall into that train of thought, especially with his somewhat unique way of reading people.
He needed to actually talk to her.
The boy's eyes shot down toward the growing pile of sand at his feet and the busted bag hanging lop-sided from the ceiling.
Superhero Name: The Watchdog Civilian Name: Malcolm Talhaiarn-Kasimir Origin city/Planet: Bludhaven, New York Hometown: Gotham City, New Jersey Sex: Male Race: Metahuman Height: 5'8" Weight: 168 lbs. Age: 16 Birth Date: Found in a dumpster as a newborn on February 1, 2009, so that's what he goes by. -------- Costumed Appearance:
Civilian Appearance: A far cry from the scrawny, malnourished youth he once was, Malcolm has… noticeably grown a bit. Though still nothing special height-wise, the boy has grown up strong, with broad shoulders and a dense, though lean musculature cultivated through the years of intensive training necessitated by his and his Ma’s particular after hours activities- powerful, but without any excessive bulk that would impede on his agility and if the scars that still cover his body are any indication, extraordinarily tough. That said, the son of Gotham’s wealthiest and favourite denizen can’t exactly wander about town looking like a hooligan- to this end, his attire is usually business casual most of the time or even a suit and tie, when the occasion calls for it and a pair of specialized contacts to change his eyes from their somewhat unusual orange glow to the more natural grey he enjoyed before his metahuman gene activated.
All in all, the lad does strike a handsome figure for a teenager, despite (or because of, depending on the optics) those afore-mentioned scars- most notably the crescent-shaped one around his left eye (from a broken beer bottle he took to face), one into his brow and a few on his cheek on the same side (from a grenade that punched bits of shrapnel through his helmet a year back) as well as a few scars that're very obviously defensive knife wounds running down his forearms leading to hands bearing punch-scarred knuckles and a sizeable burn engulfing his left shoulder and creeping partway up his neck which he simply doesn't talk about. If asked about any of these... let's call them physical eccentricities, however, the lad's typical response is to just rub the back of his shaved head and sheepishly remark that a Bludhaven slum is a very eventful place to grow up in.
To his credit, that usually shuts down most questions
Icon:
Costumed Personality: The Watchdog is, by reputation, still as relentless and unyielding as ever, but time under the tutelage of Grim has clearly left it's mark- Gone is the wild ferocity of his younger years, replaced by cold, calculated patience and brutal, machine-like efficiency while his natural talents for ambush, sabotage and stealth have only been improved upon by years of hard training and harder experience. Like his mentor, Watchdog hits hard, and fast. Eschewing any notion of a fair fight and using a combination of advanced weaponry, gadgets and tactics as well as his uncanny ability for thinking on his feet augmented by his tremendous force of will to his advantage while denying any to his unfortunate foes... who often don't even know what's going on until something with glowing, angry eyes is suddenly there and beating the ever-loving shit outta them.
All that said there's a bit more to Grim's boy than just hunting down and ambushing the ne'er-do-wells of Gotham's criminal underworld; Various accounts of things like jumpers being talked down from the brink, trapped firefighters being saved from burning buildings and lost children suddenly appearing at Police Stations, ice-cream cone in hand have... altered the reputation of the once-mythic Bludhaven Bogeyman somewhat. In ways even he never foresaw-
The Watchdog of Gotham, relentless and unyielding as ever, the kind of man who charges headlong into a harm's way, who takes an exploding grenade to the face and still gets back up... has become something people look up to.
And to his credit, he's still not entirely sure he's comfortable with that.
Civilian Personality: Malcolm is, for lack of a better way of putting it, a walking, talking stereotype of the Bludhaven lower-class, even now as the ward of the wealthiest woman in Gotham; frank, indomitably stubborn, clever in the worst possible way and possessing a potent mixture of pluck and grit with a healthy dash of crazy. That said, the lad has a big heart... ironically, you'd have to in order to survive a Bludhaven slum, where everyone who isn't a gun-toting psychopath is all in it together, and has no small reserve of compassion and kindness, which he's grown much more open about actually showing over the years, though he still keeps a tight lid on his own feelings and troubles.
Six years under the wing of Zoey Freakin' Kasimir have left their mark on the lad, however- Refining and nourishing the best of "Malcolm" while also fostering no small amount of self-control and discipline within him. The wild anger and recklessness that characterized his boyhood being largely supplanted by calm, methodical patience and an infuriatingly dry sense of humour with just a tinge of charm. Something that has both bled into his more 'private' life and made him into something of a media darling, particularly after he very famously eyed a group of metahuman criminals looking to kidnap him during a charity event in Dakota City up and down and simply cracked jokes at their expense and held his ground where most others panicked and fled for their lives- Something that endeared him to a world still coming to terms with the new reality that actual Supervillains were a thing now.
That's not to say he's above it all, however- The years have been rough, and though on the outside he makes a show of keeping his head up and marching forward with an iron will and a sharp tongue, he isn't as invulnerable as he'd like to believe... and the memory of what happened in that alleyway on the eve of his eleventh birthday haunts him still, gnawing at the back of his mind and fueling an oft-unmentioned reserve of deep-seated anger.
Super abilities:
Infiltration/Stealth: To the surprise of... pretty much no one if you think about it, picking a lock becomes a lot easier when you can actually see inside the damned thing, and it becomes a helluva lot easier to sneak into places nobody wants you to go if you can both know in advance that the coast is clear, and physically see how much sound you're making and how the acoustics of the room will carry that around.
Add to that, some formidable experience in hacking and sabotage and you have yourself one hell of a potential problem for any ne'er-do-wells who think themselves safe by hunkering down and digging in.
Parkour: Growing up in an urban slum, Malcolm has always had a knack for maneuvering around the city in some unconventional ways, more often for fun than anything. But now grown up, with his vision, reflexes, body-coordination and proper training, he damn near flies across rooftops and down alleyways, maneuvering through the urban jungle with astonishing ease. Moreso now after six years of being under Zoey's wing, with actual proper instruction and high-tech gadgetry to back up his experience with rooftop running.
Advanced Combat Training: Malcolm's adoptive father, being a former Marine raising a kid in a slum in one of the most dangerous cities in the whole United States, had the forethought to pass on his old tricks to his son. It sure wasn't pretty but it was undoubtedly effective, especially when combined with Malcolm's unique abilities and provided a solid base for Grim to work with in training him over the past six years. Incorporating elements of Muay Thai, Greco-Roman wrestling, Judo and Zoey's own Combat Sambo into what his father had left him among other things, Mal has honed his own body into an efficient, if not outright terrifying fighting machine.
Good with his Hands: Being able to see inside or through anything that isn't made of lead has it's benefits, one of them being being able to directly observe the guts of a machine or a person to see how it or they work, granting Malcolm a somewhat unique insight into the fields of both mechanics and medicine. While in the past, as a starving kid armed with only a lead pipe pitting himself against the world, this was only particularly useful for bouts MacGyvering, sabotage and precisely striking some schmuck where it'd hurt the most, six years under the tutelage of Zoey Kasimir have honed this into a formidable force all of it's own- shaping the boy into a both an impressive engineer, damned decent field surgeon and all around colossal nerd, further bolstered by his eidetic memory and enhanced bodily coordination.
Polyglot: The slums of Bludhaven are a surprisingly diverse place, and Malcolm has grown up around a lot of people from a lot of places who speak a lot of languages and has met and learned many more as both the public face of Vanguard and as the sidekick of Grim. As a result, the boy has grown to be not only literate in English, but Ukrainian, Italian, Spanish, Cantonese, German, French, Norwegian, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Icelandic, Arabic, Latin and even Atlantean as well.
All in all, not bad for what was once a scrawny kid from Blud who learned to read from whatever scraps of old books, newspapers and magazines his Dad could find in the trash.
Natural Detective/Tracker: As can be imagined, being a walking, talking blacklight, thermal, electrical and audio scanner has it's advantages, giving Mal a certain edge when trying to find the who's, what's, where's, why's, when's and how's of a crimescene... and making him particularly difficult to evade once he is onto someone's trail.
Freakish Toughness/Force of Will: Since starting his superheroic career at the ripe age of eleven years old Mal has been shot, stabbed, cut, poisoned, drugged, electrocuted, set on fire, had his bones broken, been nearly drowned, survived explosions and dodged many other should've-been-deaths multiple times. And is somehow, beyond all reason and logic, still alive.
Many would assume this is due to some other, as yet undiscovered component of his metahuman gene. His mother certainly wishes that were true.
But the fact of the matter is that Malcolm is no more bullet, knife or fireproof than any other guy; he is however, by virtue of experience and sheer force of will, ludicrously, obscenely tough. Able to take an outright inhuman amount of punishment, both physically and mentally and still get back up and keep fighting. Something that has earned him both the fear and admiration of his enemies and peers... and has caused no small number of anxiety attacks for his ma.
Peak Human Conditioning: One doesn't do what Mal does without being in some ridiculously good shape. And Zoey makes for one hell of a gym instructor, forging the boy over the course of six years into a living weapon capable of physical feats even Olympic-level athletes would gawk at.
Cooking: may well be his actual superpower.
Omnivision: By far Malcolm's most drastically superhuman ability, the boy is able to perceive almost the entire Electromagnetic Spectrum, being able to see infrared, ultraviolet, electrical currents and even straight through solid objects. And that's not even mentioning how he also possesses telescopic vision up to five miles, see in absolute darkness and can even comprehend soundwaves. There are some caveats to this, however; Firstly, he can't see through lead. Secondly, there is no off-switch, and his brain is processing all this information at the same time, the end result forming a sort of abstract painting with shifting soundwaves bouncing off of translucent walls with waves of blue, red and shifting orange forming the image of a world engulfed in a raging inferno. One that doesn't go away, even when Malcolm closes his eyes.
Enhanced Brain/Nervous Function: Malcolm's brain, as a side-effect from being able to function under the strain of everything listed above, has effectively been kicked into high gear, processing information at nearly ten times the rate of a normal human being. Though this does not inherently make him smarter than the average Joe, it does mean he can learn and retain information at several times the rate of a normal human being, with the added bonus of an eidetic memory; meaning that with time, and the proper instruction, he could prove to be one of the greatest minds of his generation.
Another, slightly more immediately advantageous side-effect of Malcolm's now overclocked brain is that, like his mental faculties, his reaction time and reflexes have been accelerated to ten times that of a normal human being. This, combined with his vision, makes the small, starving boy a legitimate force to be reckoned with as he can read an opponent's nerve impulses, body language and muscle contractions to get an idea of what they're doing and react to it before they're actually finished doing it. Additionally, this new, more efficient nervous system has granted the boy unparalleled bodily-coordination, allowing him to perform feats of dexterity and precision with ease that would be beyond even Olympic athletes and skilled craftsmen.
Gadgets: -His dad's old Zippo.
Weapons: -
Civilian Occupation: Rich Boi
Biography---------
Character History/Origin:
Bludhaven, a city with many names; The Devil's Tongue, The Big Dirty, The Bloody Haven, The Blud, Gotham's Toilet, etc... it was here on a frigid February evening that John "Mad Jack" Talhaiarn, former United States Marine and current owner of the clothes on his back and not much else, happened upon a screaming newborn baby in a dumpster behind a biker bar and across the road from a Denny's.
Thinking quickly, the man lifted the screaming infant out of the trash and pulled him into the warm confines of his parka as he began trudging his way through the heavy winter's snow towards the shanty town he called home. Talhaiarn had no idea what hell he was doing, but after a lifetime of mistakes that had led him down dark paths, disgraced and astray from his beloved Corps, he vowed to himself and any God who may've been listening, he was at least gonna get this one thing right-
Saving this fucking kid.
It took a bit of doing, and a little help from his neighbours to scrounge up and MacGuyver everything necessary to care for a newborn, but somehow he pulled it off.
After a week or so, the kid stopped screaming so much and started giggling whenever he caught wind of the old Marine near his makeshift crib. A few days after that, he started calling him "Malcolm" after his old man.
And some time after that, John Talhaiarn, a man who was both a living legend and a disgraced outcast of the United States Marine Corps... began to actually enjoy life again.
If there was anywhere to start this story, this would be it.
Mad Jack's boy grew up in their little Shanty Town, comfortably nestled in a wide alleyway, stubborn, tough and clever. With a tongue and wit sharp as any bayonet his Dad'd ever held in his former life but a heart as big and as bright as the goddamned sun. Never having much, but never really needing anything his little community couldn't provide anyway, Malcolm spent most of his days scouring the slums for anything he, his dad and his neighbours could use to make their lives easier, getting into all sorts of trouble with the other slum kids and sitting around with his dad, raptly listening to (heavily censored) war stories from his days in the corps.
It wasn't an easy life, by any means- But he was happy, so he never really gave a shit.
Though, if you've ever read a comic book, you probably have a good idea where this is going...
In the opening weeks of 2020, the five-year-long turf war between an alliance of the local Chinese Tongs, Russian Mafia and Irish gangs against the invading Aquila crime family of Gotham was reaching it's end, with the Aquilas emerging as the clear victors. In order to hunt down their rapidly scattering enemies and to send a very clear message about who was in charge now, Don Michael Aquila hired a 'specialist' from his hometown to get the job done-
Firefly. A psychopath with a flamethrower.
The night of January 31st was a relatively standard one for Malcolm; his "Aunt" Lin was cooking dinner over a drum fire, the Mikhailovich brothers were arguing in a heated, Slavic sort of way about... something stupid, from what Malcolm could gather as their confrontation shifted back and forth between Russian when they didn't want the kids to understand what they were saying and Ukrainian when they were too mad to give a shit, and Malcolm was sitting with a bunch of kids around his dad, who played Johnny Cash on a (mostly) intact guitar he and Malcolm had found the year before and the Shanty Town's local mutt, affectionately named 'Fleabag', was sprawled belly-up on Malcolm's lap being smelly and aggressively affectionate.
All-in-all, pretty normal... until something caught Fleabag's attention and she started barking up a storm. That being a charred... thing that vaguely resembled a person and stank of burnt meat that shambled it's way into their alleyway, gargling and hissing only one thing on what was left of it's vocal chords as a massive figure stepped out from shadows behind it and leveled a malevolent-looking device in the direction of everyone present;
"Help... me..."
All Malcolm can recall of what happened next was the sight, sounds and smell of everyone he'd ever loved or cared about being roasted alive to the chorus of screams and the demented laughter of the owner of a single eye encircled by scarred and burned flesh which shone with insidious ecstasy at the scene before it. And after that, nothing.
The next thing Malcolm remembers is crawling out from underneath the charred remains of his father, his dog and all the other kids.
It was his birthday.
At first, he could do nothing but sit there, shaking and trembling in silence as his mind struggled to comprehend what he was looking at, before realization slowly set in.
Then the crying started. Followed by the screaming.
And as the screaming gradually changed in pitch from horror and denial to pure outrage, something in the boy broke. The fire that consumed his family and friends slowly ebbed it's way back into his vision and consumed the whole world as he comprehended it, revealing to him nothing but violence and horror no matter where he looked, regardless of whether he wanted to see it or not.
Seemingly trapped in an eternally burning hellscape of violence and horror that he could not escape, even when he closed his eyes and in a fragile mental state, he could've easily bent or broken down. Instead, he got mad.
He got real mad.
Unable to sleep while seeing what he could, the lad eventually lashed out, more out of spite than any sense of justice, throwing himself into the fray against the criminal life within his slum with the frenzied anger of a mad dog... and then never stopped.
And so it was, that the myth of the Watchdog of Bludhaven was born.
Optional information ---------- Nemesis: Firefly, Anarkee Allies: Grim, Lady Arcana, Aquaman, Prometheus, Vinestalker Affiliated Groups: The Grim Family, The Argonauts
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