#mutationintro

how did project MKHellfire find them?

again, i’m going to try to keep this as short as possible but let’s see how this goes. rey’s backstory is heavily inspired by the movie john wick so pls forgive me for being a nerd. and no, trust me, rey is not baba yaga, i can only wish i was that good of an action writer.

rey was five when it happened. thinking back on it, he came back inside after his cousins refused to play with him outside. at the time he didn’t know why they always chased him off. but it was because he was different than his cousins, wasn’t he? blonde hair and blue eyes and fair skin... why would anyone assume that his mother was native? with her richer skin and thick chestnut brown hair, it was strange to have such a different-looking boy cling to her when they went shopping. so, he watched movies on his overly saturated television. his mom was cooking when it happened. men pounded on the door. his mom told rey to hide. 

before he could, the men broke down the door. his mother fought against them at first, but when they grabbed hold of rey who just had too small legs, she submitted. the last thing he remembers about his mom was her calling out his name before a bag was put over both their heads. 

rey woke up in a large hotel bed in an even larger decorated, shiny room. the windows were open and rey could see nothing but city. he also met mister winston. he introduced himself as the owner of this hotel. rey had the gall to ask where his mother was. mister winston told him his mother unfortunately needed to pay for things that were long overdue.

“like when you need to pay for your candy.” mister winston smiled at rey’s words.

“yes, like when you need to pay for your candy. are you hungry for some breakfast?”

rey learned quickly not to ask about his mother. the hotel workers gave him the same answer. he also learned that the hotel workers would do anything he said and quickly became spoiled and pampered. but above anything, he learned that mister winston was the law. you always listened to mister winston.

as rey grew and he made that hotel room his home, rey discovered many things about the hotel. he learned that criminals, warlords, mercernaries, and discredited military officials made frequent visits to sort out deals and contracts. the hotel was a hub for the underworld, hidden discreetly amongst other clandestine hotel resorts. 

he also discovered his mother’s place in it all. his mother was well-versed in architecture, a collector of blue plans and maps of buildings. she invested herself into her work and soon, made her skills sellable to assassins and mobs to use for any of their contracts and missions through the hotel. she caught a dangerous man’s eye and the fire that sparked was both glorious and painful. and in an attempt to “get out” of such a crime-infested life (rey could only assume it was because of him), she hid. it wasn’t long until she was found and was forced to pay out debts that she had used to try and cut off ties from the hotel, and in extension, the criminal underground.

mister winston told him he didn’t give mercy to those who willingly stepped “into this cesspool, but you, my boy, you were born into it without a choice”. so, instead of rey being cast into the foster system, mister winston adopted him as his own son. 

fast forward to just turned legal: rey is a party animal, a star boy, a boss, and a serial killer. he started training to take contracts as soon as he found out his mother’s fate, quick to learn the how-to’s of assassination. he became a suave businessman, on the good side of many mob bosses. and just like his mother, he became obsessed with knowledge. instead of architecture, it was of... biological weapons.

fast forward once again: rey is in an cia interrogation room, awaiting instructions. he’s handcuffed to his chair. despite the compromising situation, rey feels totally in control. as mister winston walks into the room, a familiar face in a uniform standing guard, rey grins triumphantly.

“mister winston,” he says eagerly, “i can become a god. a god of unimaginable power. a god for the good of the hotel. i can be a god for you, father.”

and so, rey convinces mister winston to let the cia take him into custody. rey gives enough information to deem himself valuable but never enough to put mister winston in a bad situation. rey convinces the cia that he wants out for the good of himself. he wants out so badly that he’s willing to become mkhellfire’s property to do it.

do they get along with their teammates?

HOW DID PROJECT MKHELLFIRE FIND THEM?

born into a life of organized crime, liam was on the government's watch-list before he could walk. his parents adrian and jean were involved with a notoriously dangerous gang. because of this, drug trafficking, money laundering and forgery were part of his everyday life growing up. liam first held a gun on his tenth birthday and, by the time he had reached sixteen, the amount of people he'd shot was higher than his age. when the gang began to profit from contract killings, at twenty-one, liam became their most sought-after hitman.

liam came to project mkhellfire battered and bruised from months of interrogation. despite being one of their most valuable assets, the crime family he had been loyal to all his life had sold him out to the FBI following a series of busted drug-smuggling operations. unable to get any further information out of him, the FBI had passed him over to government scientists to be experimented on. from him they harvested stem cells and bone marrow to aid their research; and after he'd exceeded his purpose, they used him as a guinea-pig for trial versions of prometheus x. they never intended for him to survive the mutation process.

BECOMING AN ACEDIA AGENT:

after developing his powers, liam was dragged out of the research lab and into the training room. many people argued that he could not be trusted to work for mkhellfire — not only because of his criminal record, but because he had more than enough reason to want revenge after how they had treated him before mutation. a lot of agents believed he should have been exterminated immediately, or at least contained until further notice, but liam quickly earned the trust of his superiors. he showed strength, restraint, patience and gratitude for his abilities. he pledged his allegiance to mkhellfire and gave them no reason to doubt his loyalty.

everything went downhill on his fifth assignment. liam was serving as extra firepower on a combat mission. us marshals had been investigating a suspected drug cartel and had tracked them to an 'abandoned' warehouse in new mexico. the orders were simple: keep the targets alive for questioning: but these orders were not obeyed.

thirty minutes after the team of agents had initially entered the building, reinforcements were charging in to restrain liam. with stun-guns and tasers, they pulled him out of the warehouse, where each member of the cartel (along with any agents that had stood in his way) laid dead in a pool of their own blood. among the casualties were adrian and jean faulkner. following the incident, liam could no longer be trusted. he was demoted to acedia and is barely given missions.

HOW WELL CAN THEY CONTROL THEIR POWERS?

liam possesses the power of matter absorption & mimcry. when he touches something, his own cells imitate it's structure, causing his body to take the form of that substance. for example, if he touched a steel blade, he would be able to transform himself into steel for added power and protection. liam has great control over his abilities and can choose when and how to transform his body. however, his power is channelled solely through his fingertips. he must be able to physically touch a substance with his hands to mimic it.

SUPERVISION:

because they cannot trust liam's motives, mkhellfire developed a pair of high-tech gloves that suppress his powers (think elsa from frozen, conceal don't feel). these gloves are secured with thick metal cuffs around the wrists and can only be removed by a high-ranking agent/member of staff. much to liam's frustration, they are generally only removed outside of atlantis during assignments.

DO THEY GET ALONG WITH THEIR TEAMMATES?

liam is civil with everyone unless he has a reason not to be. he never starts fights but will always finish them. unfortunately, with his pessimism & prickly nature, what he deems as a 'fight' is highly debatable. sometimes he can get defensive and will not listen to reason. this is probably because of his past — he has serious trust issues; he is a cynic and tends to assume the worst of people before getting to know them properly.

How did project MKHellfire find them?

Mei was a woman with nothing to lose when MKHellfire found her — she was masquerading as some local vigilante in her neighborhood, trying to take down the gang responsible for the murder of her parents when she was just a baby. Having never had a home, moving from foster home to foster home, everything in her life always seemed temporary. And just when she finally was able to track down her parents, she was directed to a cemetery. Her lifelong search for the two people she longed for most had ended in one of the worst ways it could have and she was mad, to say the least. She sought out vengeance for their deaths, teaching herself both how to fight and use a gun to take them down. With nothing left to lose, her warpath began — maybe it was that attitude that saver her from so many close calls. A moment of hesitation and her story could have ended quickly. It wasn’t long before her the criminals of the area were cowering in fear. Even the media picked up the story, of a young woman single handedly lowering crime for that brief moment. Which was exactly how MKHellfire found her. They gave her an opportunity, a purpose — something she had never had before that moment — and she took it with no questions asked. 

How well can they control their ability?

The beginning was rough, to put it mildly. She found that when her emotions weren’t in check, her powers manifested in ways that could prove highly dangerous. Her ability terrakinesis meant that she could control the very ground she walked on — the dirt, rocks — and without a fine amount of control, Mei had the ability to cause a vast amount of destruction. Although she has used such a method ( including her two attempts to escape the facility, causing her to be transferred from wrath to acedia ), she prefers a slightly more controlled approach. Despite being known for causing a few tremors in moments of rage, she can be counted on as someone with complete control over her ability. 

Do they get along with their teammates?

how did project MKHellfire find them?

From a young age Rowan already demonstrated a high intelligence, quickly climbing to the top of her class in all areas and quickly surpassing the other students in her year. So much so that she graduated high school at 13. By 17 she’d already graduated college and received a job with the university she’d graduated from. MKHellfire heard of this young prodigy and sought her out. She wasn’t hard to convince to join, all they had to do was manipulate her love for learning and the prospect of broadening her horizons far more to join.

how well can they control their ability? (virtues do not have to answer this)

because its a power she can’t really turn off, she has a hard time controlling it. she can instantly learn most things but she absorbs information at a high rate and if she absorbs too much at once it can overload her, causing extreme fatigue and splitting migraines. 

do they get along with their teammates?

how did project MKHellfire find them?

although he hasn’t been active for very long, graham remembers every moment since he was first brought into this world by one dr. veronica harmon. she was the closest thing he had to a friend – not only did she help form his a.i., she taught him about movies, music, art. genuinely talked to him (i mean, it was her job, so...) 

he’s never actually consumed any art, naturally. i figure he’ll obsess over the first film/song/book he consumes, scrubbing through that shit over and over and over again until there are no mysteries left, no page left unturned

they were ultimately separated, naturally. graham finished his evolutionary computation and left to do what he was created to do, and dr. veronica harmon was transferred to other projects. he doesn’t know what happened to her, nor has he heard from her since. 

he hasn’t deviated, yet, but i imagine that he will either due to extreme stress or b/c he realizes just how disappointing and tireless his existence is. that OR he asks an engie why he was created. (”what’s my purpose?” “you pass the butter.” “...oh my god.”)

how well can they control their ability?

built primarily as a housekeeping android, graham’s technical capabilities range from efficient cleaning techniques to “impressive social intelligence” (which, rlly, just translates to ‘can carry a conversation on any topic’ - he’s still too straightforward, too rigid w/ his speech patterns, but that’ll come w time and experience). he features integration with encyclopedia britannica, in order to dispense information as easily as he can, and IMDB, in order to understand humans & their references better.

his knowledge on art is very surface level, btw – he knows synopses, iconic quotes, iconic pieces of literature – but since he’s never actually scrubbed through them himself, there are obvious gaps. sort of like when you’re talking to someone about a show/movie and they lie through their teeth about having seen it.

of course he comes with an infantry mode as well, what with being multipurpose, but that requires activation.

do they get along with their teammates?

graham’s a.i. was programmed to be three things: straightforward, agreeable, and selfless. he can answer nearly any question posed due to his encyclopedic knowledge, though this usually just makes him seem uncanny. think david-8 of prometheus, or a less advanced kara (from quanticdream’s short “kara”, not d:bh kara). he ponders existence, creation, philosophy, very often – but stops himself most of the time, unless whomever he’s talking to chooses to talk about it.

he tries to get along with everyone, naturally, but i feel like most of the agents he comes into contact with just see him as a robot janitor. which, rlly, they’re not wrong lol!! he doesn’t really care to have friends, as long as he’s useful & treated decently.

when he eventually deviates from his programming, he’ll become a lot more selfish; he doesn’t really give two shits about humans in the fake, overbearing, selfless way he does now. he thinks they’re interesting and unpredictable and entertaining (if not a little stupid), but he would never put them first if given the choice. he’ll still be sociable, just a tad less obedient and a tad more headstrong.

how did project MKHellfire find them?

For the most part, Xavier had an average life growing up, the only thing he ever really excelled at was sports, but even then he knew that he wouldn’t be good enough for a scholarship. His best option was to enlist and maybe then he’d think about going after school once his term was over. 

Turns out he just hadn’t discovered what his true calling was. Whilst in the military he quickly climbed through the ranks until eventually he was picked up by special ops. It was there after a mission had gone south and he was the only one who was able to get out alive that MKHellfire showed up at his bedside wanting to recruit him. 

how well can they control their ability? (virtues do not have to answer this)

It was a slow process in the beginning, mostly because he didn’t think he could be a deadly weapon with a power like water manipulation. Once he got over the initial disappointment and actually began trying to harness his powers he quickly realized his true potential. 

He’s been able to learn to manipulate water in its three stages (gas, liquid, solid), but he’ll tire faster when he starts deviating from its liquid form. He’ll usually have a container of water on his person just in case. He especially loves getting sent on missions where there are large bodies of water nearby because that’s when he’s at his strongest. He’ll usually end up knocking out straight after a mission if he does end up using the large body of water in a fight. 

Every day that passes is a day that Xavier spends pushing the boundaries of his powers. He’s hoping that one day he’ll be able to harness it well enough to turn himself into a liquid form, which he hopes would make him invincible in a fight, but he’s yet to achieve that. 

do they get along with their teammates?

how did project MKHellfire find him?

Henry Tullis would have never thought of himself as a man who would join the CIA. He wasn’t exactly a fighter or a convict. In fact, Henry had been finishing his work on a degree in international politics and diplomacy (with a minor in theatre) when his sister was offered a job by the CIA. She was arguably the smarter of the two of them, both charismatic and technically proficient in all manner of technologies. She did not say, of course, that she worked for the CIA. She simply said that she had a government job that required her to be gone for long periods of time. Then, she came back, worried and excited, confiding in her younger brother that she was going to be part of a study for the government, one that would change things. Then, the family received a call. Henry’s sister had died.

Halfway through his graduate studies, Henry broke away, using friends of his sister and her own private notes to try and retrace her steps. He found himself at the edge, with Project MKHellfire dancing in the periphery of his understanding. They, however, saw him and they decided they could use the man. He started out being recruited to intelligence, but he then was funneled deeper in. When he was offered information on his sister in return for undertaking the serum, he jumped at the opportunity, taking the serum over a few years. When it was done, he found himself in one of the nurse’s body, unable to escape. It took over a year for him to be able to figure out the body jumping, but then he went back out into the field.

He never thought that he would end up an assassin, but having a person who could effortlessly get close to anyone was a useful trait for an assassin. The government spoke and Henry had to jump. They had barely given him anything on his sister, just that she had gone through the program, but nothing about where she was or what had happened to her. Thus, he found himself indebted, a killer for hire. At first, he was terrible, fraught with hesitation, until he learned better, until he found the secrets to his power and the secret to himself: cut off the humanity. 

how well can they control their ability?

Henry has gotten pretty good at the more physical parts of his power. He can now jump from his body into someone else’s by touching them. While in said person’s body, he has access to their memories, their patterns of speech, and strong feelings. Depending on the person he’s jumped into, the time he can spend in the body is quite variable. Like a demonic possession, sometimes the host body will fight him for control which can impede his progress, not indefinitely however. He always seems to be able to find his way into the mind of his victim, no matter how hard the person fights. The host will then wake up after the assassination has been carried out with no memory of what they have done.

However,mentally and  emotionally, each possession has an effect on Henry. After all, being someone else for anywhere from hours to days leaves an imprint in Henry’s already very tumultuous mind. There are times he loses sense of who he is even once he’s returned back to his body or he can have difficulty seeing people as people. As an assassin it was simply easier to see people as targets and hosts rather than individuals.

does he get along with his teammates?

how did project MKHellfire find them?

originally, hana was recruited by hellfire to be a courage agent- she trained in combat for months, learned how to take apart and put back together a gun within a minute. she worked her ass off training with the project, using every opportunity to prove herself. 

she excelled in the field, managing to do a handful of missions before the woman fell ill- pulled out of active rotation to get assessed by a handful of doctors. they diagnosed her with what they thought was just a case of the flu, given two days of rest before she was suppose to be out on her next mission. 

however, two days later and hana couldn’t even move from her bed, drifting in and out of consciousness before finally blacking out entirely. a day later, she woke up to the face of an agent she hadn’t met before. 

they explained that when they found her, her lungs were in the middle of failing, slowly suffocating her. but, hellfire had brought her back- gifted with her new set of lungs that were now more efficient than her previous ones. 

she wouldn’t be able to be in a field mission as intense as she was doing before, instead they offered her a spot in their charity division- recruiting and working their higher ups. 

do they get along with their teammates?

hana is a very commanding person, she has the attitude to know that she is just as worthy as anyone else in the room - abilities or lung transplant be damned. she carries herself with a sense of purpose, having spent a majority of the past five years devoting her time to mkhellfire and speaking on the pro’s of the programs.