Post by Meshindi on Dec 20, 2022 17:57:44 GMT
MESHINDI
"conqueror; victor"
THE BEAST
Once, there was a beast known as the Spinebreaker.
It was called a beast, for to call it a man would be too kind. It did not think as a man did; it did not feel as a man did; it did not act as a man did, for the rules of the world were meant to stop men from becoming beasts. A man knows justice. A beast knows only wrath.
It was not a man, then, that had descended upon the sinful masses to lay waste to their nested dens of filth.
And yet the Spinebreaker had not always succumbed to the wayward urges of bestial hate. It had once held humanity within its wretched heart, as all men do, for the core of man is the seed of mankind, and the seed of mankind is to do good. That seed, like all else-- the feeling, the action, the thought-- lay shriveled, now, within the decrepit husk that once housed a man.
All that remained was a forlorn shell and the beast which inhabited it.
It was called a beast, for to call it a man would be too kind. It did not think as a man did; it did not feel as a man did; it did not act as a man did, for the rules of the world were meant to stop men from becoming beasts. A man knows justice. A beast knows only wrath.
It was not a man, then, that had descended upon the sinful masses to lay waste to their nested dens of filth.
And yet the Spinebreaker had not always succumbed to the wayward urges of bestial hate. It had once held humanity within its wretched heart, as all men do, for the core of man is the seed of mankind, and the seed of mankind is to do good. That seed, like all else-- the feeling, the action, the thought-- lay shriveled, now, within the decrepit husk that once housed a man.
All that remained was a forlorn shell and the beast which inhabited it.
THE MAN
When the beast was slain and the husk was left, there was hardly a man at all.
He called himself Meshindi; the epithets he carried before were as dead as the souls that knew them. John Hudson. Operative Beta. The Spinebreaker. The past he carried upon his shoulders was soon forgotten, for there was no one alive to remember it save he-- and even he soon fell victim to the greatest enemy of memory. Time. The blows upon body, soul, and mind soon took their toll; the beast could only fight for so long before fatigue claimed it. Years ago, it fell. Years ago, the Spinebreaker died.
But Meshindi lived.
New York City was a vast place; it was easy to disappear, then, after all had been said and done. Gone were the days of wrath. Gone were the days of feeling, of thought, of action. Gone were the days of men and beasts. There was only the monotony of routine and of mundane life; Meshindi was soon replaced by Corey Marshall, a citizen of average worth and average character. He was a volunteer firefighter who worked at a food bank in Queens on the weekends; each day, he took the train to his house in a failing apartment complex and struggled to pay rent. He was a blind man, and the furnishings of his home reflected that. Corey was, for better or for worse, unnotable.
It was easy to disappear, then, after all had been said and done.
What little he held of the beast's plunder had been given to those he had wronged. It would have been selfish, he thought, to have kept the lion's share of a life no longer lived; isolation came next, swift and unburdened by connection and empathy. Corey Marshall had done the world a favor by disappearing. None would miss the man he was before.
Only her. And she was dead.
He called himself Meshindi; the epithets he carried before were as dead as the souls that knew them. John Hudson. Operative Beta. The Spinebreaker. The past he carried upon his shoulders was soon forgotten, for there was no one alive to remember it save he-- and even he soon fell victim to the greatest enemy of memory. Time. The blows upon body, soul, and mind soon took their toll; the beast could only fight for so long before fatigue claimed it. Years ago, it fell. Years ago, the Spinebreaker died.
But Meshindi lived.
New York City was a vast place; it was easy to disappear, then, after all had been said and done. Gone were the days of wrath. Gone were the days of feeling, of thought, of action. Gone were the days of men and beasts. There was only the monotony of routine and of mundane life; Meshindi was soon replaced by Corey Marshall, a citizen of average worth and average character. He was a volunteer firefighter who worked at a food bank in Queens on the weekends; each day, he took the train to his house in a failing apartment complex and struggled to pay rent. He was a blind man, and the furnishings of his home reflected that. Corey was, for better or for worse, unnotable.
It was easy to disappear, then, after all had been said and done.
What little he held of the beast's plunder had been given to those he had wronged. It would have been selfish, he thought, to have kept the lion's share of a life no longer lived; isolation came next, swift and unburdened by connection and empathy. Corey Marshall had done the world a favor by disappearing. None would miss the man he was before.
Only her. And she was dead.
THE BURDEN
A beast could only remain dead for so long before another takes its place.
Though he was not the man-- nor the beast-- he used to be, Corey Marshall, or Meshindi, boasts a variety of skills and enhancements that, while faded over time, are still present. These include the martial prowess he gained in his past work as a soldier, the flexibility and agility that came with the release of his burden, and the ability to navigate the world while blind-- a byproduct of merely functioning in society.
The burden, as Meshindi had once called it, was a set of subdermal armor grafted onto his muscle layers after he had sustained grave injuries while working as a soldier. Though he had once utilized this burden to the full extent of his abilities, the time inevitably came to shed the armor and return to normalcy; after his defeat in New York at the hands of multiple heroes, namely Capacitor and Tremor, Meshindi fully decided to relieve himself of the burden entirely.
While originally thought as an impossible task, Meshindi employed the expertise of previous surgeons who had installed the subdermal armor-- expatriates from MAVU who owed him favors-- and ultimately received a compromise between fully removing the subdermal armor and keeping it grafted to his body. Because the armor literally functioned as a part of his own body, the surgeons had no choice but to either keep the burden or replace it with a more practical substitute. The latter was chosen.
As a result, Meshindi still possesses a subdermal "armor", though this is a bio-organic composite that was originally fused to the body; over time, however, the organic material was assimilated into the musculature and dermal layers of Meshindi's body and soon became just another part of his biology. Skin grafts ensured that he truly had actual skin, instead of a mere synthetic replacement, and he was as much of a man as he could possibly be. It was an operation that nearly took days to complete, and the months that followed post-operation recovery saw Meshindi rarely moving to ensure that the skin and bio-organic composite was not rejected by his body. These months were largely spent in the midst of spiritual meditation, for Meshindi could not turn anywhere else except inward.
What came of the operation was a hardened, albeit less durable, version of the burden that Meshindi had become accustomed to. With a look and function similar to chitin, the substance mimicked the dermal and fascial layers of the skin; this granted Meshindi a small degree of durability and impact resistance while maintaining flexibility and speed, as he was no longer weighed down by an alloy-composite ceramic armor layer upon every inch of his body. The impact to his physiology also received a notable enhancement; as he was no longer weighed down by the mass of the burden, Meshindi's reflexes, strength, and speed were markedly boosted as he had been forced, for many years, to maintain peak condition of his body with the obstacle of his burden. With that burden lifted, the upper threshold of his movement and reflexes constitute blurs, and his accomplishable feats of acrobatics have notably increased.
And yet Meshindi is still no stranger to handicap. He navigates the world in total blindness, aided only by a sort of pseudo-echolocation developed over the years spent in darkness. In addition, his suit is largely quite thin and receptive to changes in air and surface vibrations, allowing him to accurately sense the world around him without the need of ocular visibility. The cape he now wears accentuates this strategy by rustling and moving in response to different changes to the air and wind in ways his suit does not. It also functions largely as Meshindi's first line of defense against attacks, seeing as it is made out of far more durable material than his suit; in addition, it may be used as a distraction or a means of slowing his descent due to air resistance, which assists in Meshindi's acrobatic feats as a complement to his cat-like reflexes and heightened agility.
Though he was not the man-- nor the beast-- he used to be, Corey Marshall, or Meshindi, boasts a variety of skills and enhancements that, while faded over time, are still present. These include the martial prowess he gained in his past work as a soldier, the flexibility and agility that came with the release of his burden, and the ability to navigate the world while blind-- a byproduct of merely functioning in society.
The burden, as Meshindi had once called it, was a set of subdermal armor grafted onto his muscle layers after he had sustained grave injuries while working as a soldier. Though he had once utilized this burden to the full extent of his abilities, the time inevitably came to shed the armor and return to normalcy; after his defeat in New York at the hands of multiple heroes, namely Capacitor and Tremor, Meshindi fully decided to relieve himself of the burden entirely.
While originally thought as an impossible task, Meshindi employed the expertise of previous surgeons who had installed the subdermal armor-- expatriates from MAVU who owed him favors-- and ultimately received a compromise between fully removing the subdermal armor and keeping it grafted to his body. Because the armor literally functioned as a part of his own body, the surgeons had no choice but to either keep the burden or replace it with a more practical substitute. The latter was chosen.
As a result, Meshindi still possesses a subdermal "armor", though this is a bio-organic composite that was originally fused to the body; over time, however, the organic material was assimilated into the musculature and dermal layers of Meshindi's body and soon became just another part of his biology. Skin grafts ensured that he truly had actual skin, instead of a mere synthetic replacement, and he was as much of a man as he could possibly be. It was an operation that nearly took days to complete, and the months that followed post-operation recovery saw Meshindi rarely moving to ensure that the skin and bio-organic composite was not rejected by his body. These months were largely spent in the midst of spiritual meditation, for Meshindi could not turn anywhere else except inward.
What came of the operation was a hardened, albeit less durable, version of the burden that Meshindi had become accustomed to. With a look and function similar to chitin, the substance mimicked the dermal and fascial layers of the skin; this granted Meshindi a small degree of durability and impact resistance while maintaining flexibility and speed, as he was no longer weighed down by an alloy-composite ceramic armor layer upon every inch of his body. The impact to his physiology also received a notable enhancement; as he was no longer weighed down by the mass of the burden, Meshindi's reflexes, strength, and speed were markedly boosted as he had been forced, for many years, to maintain peak condition of his body with the obstacle of his burden. With that burden lifted, the upper threshold of his movement and reflexes constitute blurs, and his accomplishable feats of acrobatics have notably increased.
And yet Meshindi is still no stranger to handicap. He navigates the world in total blindness, aided only by a sort of pseudo-echolocation developed over the years spent in darkness. In addition, his suit is largely quite thin and receptive to changes in air and surface vibrations, allowing him to accurately sense the world around him without the need of ocular visibility. The cape he now wears accentuates this strategy by rustling and moving in response to different changes to the air and wind in ways his suit does not. It also functions largely as Meshindi's first line of defense against attacks, seeing as it is made out of far more durable material than his suit; in addition, it may be used as a distraction or a means of slowing his descent due to air resistance, which assists in Meshindi's acrobatic feats as a complement to his cat-like reflexes and heightened agility.