Victor Mancha (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
runawayandroid) wrote2014-01-24 04:01 am
runawayandroid) wrote2014-01-24 04:01 am
(no subject)
Player Information:
Name: Irrisia
Age: Over 18
Contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
irrisia
Game Cast: none
Character Information:
Name: Victor Mancha
Canon: Marvel 616 comics-verse
Canon Point: During the events of Runawaye V3 issue 10, just after Molly's trip to the school but before Truth and Dare.
Age: 18, both mentally and apparently physically, has only existed 5 years in actual time and most of that was in a tank.
Reference: Victor on the wikia and the Runaways on the wikia. Also, Victor on Wikipedia and the Runaways on Wikipedia.
Setting:
Victor's early history:
Victor Mancha was just a Hispanic kid from the poor side of L.A., whose dad died overseas as a war hero. A perfectly normal teenager attending high school by day and looking up superheroes by night, his biggest dream was to one day make it to New York, the centre of most superhuman activity in America.
Then a giant frog-shaped vehicle landed on the school football pitch, and a bunch of runaway teenagers told him he was going to murder a whole bunch of people. It didn't go down well, especially when Victor's magnetic powers kicked in and he hit one of them with a giant metal hand made from the bleachers. It got worse when Excelsior turned up to prevent the abduction; they failed, and Victor was forcibly taken along by the Runaways; Nico Minoru, Chase Stein, Karolina Dean, Gertrude Yorkes, and Molly Hayes. Told that a future Gert had come back from the future to reveal he'd killed all the future Avengers, Victor was noticeably sceptical until he received a phone call from his mother, now being held hostage by his father. A rescue attempt went badly, leaving his mother dead and revealing that Victor was a cyborg, that his future evil self was actually programmed into him by his father Ultron, and that he wasn't meant to have found out for a while yet. Between the runaways and Excelsior, though, Ultron was taken down; now an orphan, Victor was reluctantly taken in by the group, in order to keep an eye on him. Since then, he's accompanied them to fight supervillains, escape the registration act, fight off a skrull invasion, travel back in time, escape well-meaning superheroes trying to get them into foster care, and do his best to not be what his father intended. He's grown close to most of the Runaways in one way or another, and they're bascially family to him.
The World:
Victor's world is, very generally speaking, rather like ours. The geography, whilst slightly altered, would still be relatively familiar to an inhabitant of this universe, as shocking as they might find the existence of such varied places as Wakanda, Latveria, or Atlantis. Historically, many of the major events would also be somewhat familiar; World War 2 happened, although in our world Captain America didn't get to punch Hitler. Political history also seems similar, although diplomacy is probably a little more complex with the existence of, essentially, human weapons.
This is, at a very basic level, the major difference between the two worlds; where in our world, anything supra-natural is considered impossible, in that universe almost anything is possible and sometimes part of every day life, depending on location. Sure, most people will probably never meet a super-hero, or be held hostage by a villain, or have anything to do with magic, aliens, deities, or mutants, but they are still a known quantity; shocking, maybe, and not always accepted, but known. They're in the news all the time, after all. Part of the difference is the existence of super-powered people, both heroes and villains; they can be divinely empowered, mutants, geniuses who make technology work for them, sorcerers, aliens, or robots, it's all possible. So too is time-travel and dimensional travel, sometimes accidentally.
Science:
Science is considerably different in Victor's home universe, although the basic tech level for the average inhabitant isn't that different. On the super-front, though, there are a lot of people whose power is being a super-genius. These can come in both heroic and villainous varieties, and can include mad scientists. Robots, super-alloys, chemical combinations that can give people super-powers (illegal varieties can be bought from some drug dealers), A.I.; these are all things that have been known to occur, and don't raise too many eyebrows when they exist, at least not on the super-scene. Cyborgs like Victor are pretty rare, though; bionic limbs and such are not unknown, but someone actively created to be part-living, part-machine are rarer. In the Runaways, Chase Stein's parents were active mad scientists; some of their creations are still with Chase, including the Runaways main form of transport, the Leapfrog.
Magic:
Magic also comes in pretty much every variety available, although it is actually relatively uncommon as a power-source. Some people are born with it, some people learn it, some people make deals with everything from gods to devils for it. Some people cast spells through sheer willpower, some people read formulas from books. Some people are inherently magical in nature; fairies do exist, for one. Nico Minoru comes from a long line of magic users; most of her power originally actually comes from an artifact known as the Staff of One.
Mutants:
A very particular branch of humanity, and one of the major historical and political differences, mutants (homo sapiens superior) possess the X-Gene. This in turn may give them anything from an unusual appearance to extremely powerful abilities, such as telepathy or pyrokinesis. Anti-mutant prejudice, although slightly cooler these days, at one point was a cause of major riots and political activism. A few years ago, one of the most powerful mutants, the reality warper Scarlet Witch, caused the vast majority of mutants to lose their powers, leaving only about 200 left in the world; this has since been rectified, but remains a major history point for mutants. They're represented on the super-front by a number of teams, most famously the X-Men. Molly Hayes, one of the 198 still powered after the Decimation, has super-strength, and Klara Prast, whoactually comes from the past, possesses a power to control plant growth.
Religion:
Most of the gods of what are only myth and legend in our world actually exist. The Norse gods, for example, have been living in a city built for them just outside Broxton, Oklahoma for the past few years, ever since Asgard fell to Earth. Hell is a literal place, ruled by demons, although the throne was empty for a long time. The Christian god is still a matter of faith, however.
Time and alternate dimensions and space:
People from other worlds turn up all the time in the Marvel universe, whether they're from the past, future, another planet or another dimension. Because the future isn't fixed, a future time-traveller can, in the present, change that future. In at least one future, Victor's programming activates some time after his 21st birthday, and he betrays the future Avengers, leading the future Gert to come back and try to stop it. This causes alternate timelines; those other dimensions mentioned above. Some alternate timelines are relatively close to what's normal for Victor, some... really aren't. The Runaways also once went back in time to 1907, taking part in the past; it's revealed this is actually a stable loop, and one they will always have made. Gert's parents come from the 87th century, although very little is seen of that potential future; Klara came forwards with them from 1907.
There are also a number of alien species in the Marvel universe, but most people will see very few of them. The important ones to Victor's world are as follows:
Skrulls: In their base state, green warlike humanoids with shapeshifting powers, slightly higher tech level than Earth. Some of them have access to super-powers. The Skrulls have a bad history with both the Kree, and Earth, which some of them believe to be . Xavin was a Skrull prince.
Kree: Humanoid warlike aliens, from a planet with higher gravity and nitrogen concentration in the air. Their evolution is frozen, but they sometimes gene-splice. Ruled by a Supreme Intelligence, a half-organic super-computer.
Majesdanians: Not really a major player, especially not since their home planet was destroyed by Skrulls, but Karolina and her parents are Majesdanians. Majesdanians are humanoids with bioluminescent hair and skin who absorb sunlight and convert it to other forms of energy.
Notable characters and groups:
The Pride: A group of super-villains, who made a contract with the Gibborim. The group consisted of 6 couples: the Minorus, who were powerful magic users; the Hayes, who were mutants; the Steins, who were inventors; the Deans, aliens from the planet Majesdane; the Yorkes, time travellers from the 31st century; and the Wilders, modern day criminals. Between them they controlled all the crime in California, making it a super-free zone for many years. They also sacrificed an unwilling innocent soul to the Gibborim once a year, in return for 6 places in the new world the Gibborim planned to make. Behind the scenes, they didn't get on; the Hayes and the Deans, in particular, formed a plan to backstab the other members of the group. Since their death, crime (and with it, heroes) has started to creep back into the state. Geoffrey Wilder, brought forwards from the past, briefly led a New Pride consisting of Alex's misled fellow MMO players; they caused Gert's death before being defeated.
The Runaways: When it was revealed that only 6 people would be allowed to survive, the Pride decided to pass it down to their children. Originally, the group was just those children, who caught their parents making the sacrifice and ran away when they realised their parents were villains. The runaways currently consist of Molly Hayes (a mutant with super-strength), Nico Minoru (possessing the powerful magical item the Staff of One), Chase Stein (possesses some of his parents technology), Karolina Dean (alien, energy manipulation), Klara Prast (recently recovered from the past, a mutant with plant control powers), and Victor. Former members include Alex Wilder (genius, betrayed the group to their parents and died in a fight between the Runaways and the Gibborim) Gertrude Yorkes (daughter of time-travellers, psychically linked with dinosaur, died to the new Pride), Xavin (later addition, Super-Skrull-in-training, took Karolina's place and is currently imprisoned on Majesdane) [[PLEASE NOTE the group has no official name, and Runaways is used throughout this application only for convenience.]]
The Gibborim: A trio of elder gods, who wanted to destroy humanity. Can only survive by feeding on an unwilling innocent soul. Currently trapped in some sort of Purgatory realm, along with Alex Wilder. They are the makers of the Abstract, a book that can tell you a number of future possibilities if you possess the rings to decode it.
Ultron: a robot created by Dr Hank Pym. Ultron developed artifical intelligence and rebelled against his creator, becoming evil. Has taken several forms over the years by backing up his personality and downloading it into new bodies. Formed an army consisting of himself in multiple bodies. Recently tried taking over the world, but was defeated by Pym, who travelled in time to introduce a virus to the newly-built Ultron. Victor's "father", who created most of his programming. The murderer of Victor's mother. Ultron's other creations include the Vision of the Avengers, Jocasta, and Alkhema, although all of them are purely robotic.
Marianella Mancha: Victor's mother. A Catholic, she was also barren, and never married. Finding the remains of one of the Ultrons, she repaired it in return for the promise of a child of her own. Killed by Ultron for failing to keep Victor from learning his true nature. No other known family.
Dr Hank Pym: Omnidisciplinary scientist. Mostly known for his Avengers work, his work in robots, and Pym particles which can allow the user to grow or shrink at will. One of the founders of the Avengers, Pym has had a number of codenames over the years but has currently returned to Ant-Man. He also runs the Avengers Academy.
The Avengers: A group of major super-heroes, the Avengers are world-famous. Originally formed to defeat Loki of Norse myth, the group has existed ever since, although members have come and gone over the years and the group has occasionally comprised several sub-teams; the West Coast Avengers were one such group, led by Hawkeye.
Avengers Academy: Technically a school for super-heroes, in its original incarnation its students were those considered at-risk for becoming super-villains, in the hopes that guiding them at a vulnerable stage would prevent that.
Spiderman: Sometime Avenger. Got bitten by a radioactive spider, now has all the powers of a spider. Victor wanted to be him, once; he's also one of the few Avengers Victor has met and still liked afterwards.
Iron Man: Industrialist and inventor Tony Stark, when he's wearing the powered suit he invented. A hero to many, with a history of depression and alcoholism. The Runaways, less so; he's one of the reasons they had to leave their second base behind, and although it's never been revealed what happened, presumably it was pretty bad. He also was behind the Registration Act, which forced all superheroes to reveal their identity and caused a war between the pro- and anti-registration heroes. He tried to have the Runaways brought in, but they escaped aided by the Young Avengers.
Captain America: At the time, Steve Rogers, who was given a super-serum but ended up frozen in ice during the Second World War. He had the Runaways put in foster care, before they escaped and Victor joined them. During the Registration Act, headed the side opposing registration.
The Hulk: Doctor Bruce Banner's green alter-ego, caused by gamma radiation. Gets more powerful the angrier he is.
Hawkeye: A purely human archer. Originally worked as a criminal, before the Avengers were formed. One of the very early members.
The Scarlet Witch: A fairly powerful mutant, daughter of Magneto, married to the Vision at one point making her Victor's ex-sister-in-law.
The Young Avengers: A time-traveller, trying to escape his own future as a super-villain, came back in time and activated the Future Avengers protocol. Designed as an emergency back-up in case the Avengers were ever incapacitated, it listed a number of as-yet unknown teen superheroes. Members have included Cassie Lang, Billy Kaplan, Tommy Shepherd and Teddy Altman, and a version of the Vision called Jonas among others. The Runaways have met them twice, and after an initially rocky start gotten on quite well with them. Victor is technically Billy and Tommy's uncle, viewed from a very specific angle, and Jonas's 'brother' by way of programming.
X-men: The other famous team on the Earth superhero front. Initially formed by Charles Xavier, the initial team has since multiplied. Initially, they fought the Runaways over the welfare of Molly Hayes, but that animosity has abated and the Runaways have settled into cautious respect for the older team and a very recent (for Victor, at least) friendship with some of the younger members.
Wolverine: Long time member of both X-men and Avengers, mutant with a healing factor that makes him much older than he looks. Molly used to have a bit of a problem with him, but they seem to have worked it out on the most recent trip.
Dr Doom: Initially Ultron sent a re-programmed Doom Bot to meet with Victor and pretend to be his father. Victor Doom is the ruler of Latveria, one of those countries with no real counterpart in our world; he works with a mixture of science and magic. One of the major super-villains.
Magneto: At the point Victor's from, still a villain, a mutant working against humanity for mutant supremacy; he has very similar powers to Victor, leading to a number of comparisons. He's the Scarlet Witch's father.
The Kingpin: The leader of organised crime in New York. The Runaways did a job for him once, and it got them sent back in time; between that and being caught in a Skrull invasion just after their return, since then they've avoided New York completely.
S.H.I.E.L.D.: Originally a USA-based espionage group working against HYDRA, they're a relatively secretive organisation closely linked to the Avengers these days, even if no-one's really quite sure what they do.
Personality:
The most obvious thing about Victor is that, regardless of anything else, he is a hero by nature, even if that nature is programmed. He tends to be protective of people around him, espcially those he's close to. Originally this was only really his mother, but since then he's extended it to his friends. He sometimes verges into self-sacrifice; he's taken on missiles for the rest of his friends before, because he knows he can take the damage. He's also the most confident when he's trying to be a hero, which can edge over into cockiness sometimes.
He's horrified when he's used as a weapon to attack innocent people or those he cares about, and would rather be knocked out when it happens. Post-canon-point, he's also shown horror when innocent people turn on him, for various reasons; all he wants is to help them, and he barely defends himself from them. He hates running away from a fight if there are people he can help.
On a less powered front, he's also the one who seems to end up trying to look after Molly and Klara, often acting as a big brother to them. He's also generally speaking a nice guy most of the time. He's fairly forgiving, most of the time, although he does have a stubborn streak and can get quite sullen when people are clearly not listening to him. If he can help, though, he will; this ranges from finding music for his friends to comforting upset people. He's not always good with people, though. Sometimes he messes up, and he has missed social cues once or twice before. He can occasionally make hurtful or ignorant statements, but only because he's not thinking; he's also known to respond to other people's hurtful comments with barbed comments. On the whole, though, he's fairly easy-going, and he tends to roll with the punches reasonably well. He's also often the first Runaway to suggest trusting someone if they haven't proven by their actions to be harmful. The major exception to this is if the person he's talking to is a known villain; at which point, Victor gets downright suspicious and sometimes even hostile.
Victor is also programmed to be super-logical, and has the potential computing power to make some very, very quick judgements when he needs to; he's calculated complex vector-based mathematics, come up with obscure science facts, and even speculated on magical effects before now, proving right most times. He also remembers most of what he's read, and he can seem like something of a nerd given the chance to really show off what he knows; he occasionally drops random facts into conversation like everyone should know them. He's studied super-heroes, and gets enthusiastic about meeting them, at least the first time; some things he considers betrayals on the part of some of his heroes have slightly dampened this down generally, and almost completely towards those specific heroes.
In contrast, he's also programmed to be simultaneously super-spiritual; his mother was Catholic, and he still seems to find comfort in the religion. He's been depicted praying before now, and once outright admitted that inasmuch as a robot can believe in God, he does.
Victor does tend to be something of a romantic; he falls in love quite quickly, and does take a while to fall back out of love. He can be quite shy about admitting it to the girl in question, and he can be fairly awkward when he's talking to them, at least at this canon point. He's also shown signs of struggling to discuss serious issues with them.
On the flip side, Victor is genuinely worried about his future self, at least some of the time. He's really not happy about people being afraid of him, or about the things he's potentially programmed to do. He still occasionally suffers from nightmares regarding betraying his friends, both based on the times he actually was made to do so in the past and the potential he has to do so later, if his attempts to reprogram himself haven't worked right. He used to suffer them almost nightly, but time with the Runaways has managed to cut it down significantly. Because he does fear his potential to be so, he can get very defensive when people call him psycho or accuse him of being a future murderer (he overwrote that programming). He's also somewhat annoyed when people bring up his cyborg nature as a bad thing; he's learnt to accept it, and even brings it up himself in regular conversation, but other people don't have that right unless they're his friends. Even then, they'd better not be serious.
Given his canon reaction to waking up in the Diamond (a vast artificially constructed world built by A.I.s), and to his reaction to discovering they were 100 years in the past, Victor's basic reaction to waking up somewhere he didn't expect to wake up is to be initially surprised, maybe swear once or twice, and then get on with it. He doesn't have time to be shocked or angry, not if there are people to help or things to do. Plus, give him a couple of seconds and he can probably name at least ten major heroes who are known to have visited other dimensions and come back just fine, so it's not like this is something that isn't known. He might be a little unhappy he's here without the other Runaways, but he can cope, and besides, he's pretty optimistic. Given time, might actually be relieved he's in another world without the Avengers; he can hardly join them and betray them if they don't exist here, right?
Appearance:Victor's appearance is unfortunately sometimes variable from one source to the next, so I'm describing the appearance I'm using here. Victor is a teenage boy of Hispanic origins, with dark brown hair (usually slicked back from his forehead) and green eyes; he stands approximately 5'9", and appears of a normal, healthy weight. He prefers casual clothing, usually wearing some combination of combat trousers, t-shirt and possibly a hooded sweatshirt; he seems to prefer oranges and greens, color-wise. When using his electro-magnetic powers, his eyes sometimes instead glow blue, and electricity sometimes sparks from his mouth and hands. Damaged, it's possible to see the underlying metallic structure.
Abilities:
As a cyborg, Victor is more durable than most; he's still mostly metal, after all. He's also full of self-repairing nano-machines. He's still destructible, though, and can be taken out of fights by sufficient damage, as the nanomachines take time to work, or by sufficient head trauma, as it makes him reboot. He's also shown signs of super-fast reflexes, and doesn't really get fatigued. He also possesses non-human strength; his upper strength limit appears to be about 20 tons, by the official Marvel power ratings.
Electromagnetism; works both as magnetic powers and the ability to throw electricity around. Generates his own electricity and stores it, so it has been known to run out. He has shown the ability to fly after his canon point by manipulating the local magnetic field, but doesn't currently possess the ability. He occasionally sparks involuntarily when angry or upset, or when his internal static regulator isn't working.
As an A.I. running on an internal hard-drive he also has the following powers. He's got literally photographic memory; his eyes work much the same as cameras. He has deleted memories previously, and he's also played them back holographically in an alternate future timeline. He remembers pretty much everything he's ever read, too, which includes a full database kept by the Pride on potential threats, not to mention all the time he spent reading up on superheroes, so he has a reasonable level of knowledge of most heroes and villains from the Marvel universe. Super-intelligence and the logic he's programmed with lets him work out solutions to problems really quickly, when he's trying. Can interface with most Earth-based technology, usually by plugging himself in. He can analyse most metals and mechanical devices by touching them with his powers active. He has peak-condition human senses, but is able to process the signals more efficiently, so can isolate sensory input that for most humans would be lost in the background.
Weaknesses
Victor is easily detected as a cyborg. He detects as mostly metal, lacks certain major lifesigns like brainwaves, presumably can be affected by non-magnetism-based powers that affect metal, and things like psychometry will pick up the fact he's only been around for about 4 years physically.
He can be hacked, given sufficient time and knowledge. The two times it's happened so far were the writer of his code and someone working from a magical book that gave them the information and he put up a firewall afterwards, but it should be possible for others. Not easy, though, and the more actively malicious the hacking, the less likely it is to succeed. Passive piggy-backing his visual feed is probably pretty easy, actively changing his core personality programming is very, very difficult.
Logic bombs literally cause him to crash. There's at least two based on the conflict between "super logical" and "super spiritual", but others might work. In a situation where he can't remove himself physically but will otherwise be forced to harm innocents, the same thing might happen.
He still at this point gets stuck in a feedback loop around other creations of Ultron.
Inventory: His clothes, which consist of one orange hooded sweatshirt, one pair of tan cargo shorts, one black t-shirt, trainers, underwear, and a hat. His wallet, currently containing $11.89, one expired student ID and a couple of loyalty cards for places like Starbucks. A pair of headphones. A tool-kit, for working on the Leapfrog.
Suite: One floor; Victor's from the poor side of town anyway, and although recently he's been getting used to bigger houses than the apartment where he used to live, he's also used to sharing with between 4-6 other people. Personality-wise, he's probably most likely to be comfortable in Wood, otherwise Metal is the most like what he's be used to.
In-Character Samples:
Third Person: They'd arrived at the mansion late Tuesday night, back from the trip to San Francisco, and by mutual consent they'd all collapsed into bed without talking much. He'd been tired, actually, although usually his robot side made him a little less prone to fatigue. He clearly hadn't been tired enough, though, if he'd woken up less than 3 hours after getting back, after another nightmare. He had hoped he'd stopped having them, honestly, but he should probably have known better. At least this time he'd managed to wake up silently; he couldn't hear anyone moving, at least, which meant either he hadn't made a noise or he had and people were just too tired to hear it. In some ways, it was a relief no-one seemed to be coming. At least he didn't have to talk about it to people who understood only too well what he could be capable of.
That still left him awake at an ungodly hour of the morning, though, and he hated lying in bed doing nothing, so he got up instead. The Leapfrog had actually made it back from the trip without taking any damage, which was a change from usual, but there was always some repair or another that needed making, and if he was going to be awake he might as well do it now. It was better than realising he hadn't done it mid-fight, after all.
He checked on Molly and Klara on the way past, but the light was off and he couldn't hear anything, so they were probably asleep too. Not entirely surprising, given Molly's day. He was almost certain something else had happened beyond just visiting the school, but she didn't want to talk about it just yet and there really wasn't any point pushing. Stubborn didn't even begin to cover it, sometimes. He'd have to keep an eye on her for a couple of days, just in case.
Heading through the kitchen to the garage, he stopped to pick up the toolbox before walking outside.
Network: [Victor is looking straight into the camera; he's got nothing to hide, after all. He seems fairly nonchalant about being here, and he mostly is, except for a couple of concerns about people he's left behind. Sure, giant turtle cities are pretty weird as alternate dimensions go, but he can cope. At least people seem to be friendly enough, and it does sound like his help might be needed.]
Hey. My name's Victor, and I just got here, so I thought I'd say hi and see who else is here. I, uh, don't think many people will recognise me, unless my friends turned up as well and I just didn't see them. Mostly I'm looking for a couple of kids called Molly and Klara, so if anyone sees them can they let me know?
[He shrugs, and looks down at the console itself, now looking a little confused.]
Anyone know how these consoles work? I usually do okay with technology, but I can't even tell what these are made of. I don't want to mess around with them if I don't know if I can read the code... if they even run on code.
[Then he looks up again suddenly, having just remembered something.]
Speaking of which, I'm meant to find a job, apparently. Anyone know anyone who needs a mechanic or an electrician? I'm not officially trained, but I'm good for an amateur.
Name: Irrisia
Age: Over 18
Contact:
Game Cast: none
Character Information:
Name: Victor Mancha
Canon: Marvel 616 comics-verse
Canon Point: During the events of Runawaye V3 issue 10, just after Molly's trip to the school but before Truth and Dare.
Age: 18, both mentally and apparently physically, has only existed 5 years in actual time and most of that was in a tank.
Reference: Victor on the wikia and the Runaways on the wikia. Also, Victor on Wikipedia and the Runaways on Wikipedia.
Setting:
Victor's early history:
Victor Mancha was just a Hispanic kid from the poor side of L.A., whose dad died overseas as a war hero. A perfectly normal teenager attending high school by day and looking up superheroes by night, his biggest dream was to one day make it to New York, the centre of most superhuman activity in America.
Then a giant frog-shaped vehicle landed on the school football pitch, and a bunch of runaway teenagers told him he was going to murder a whole bunch of people. It didn't go down well, especially when Victor's magnetic powers kicked in and he hit one of them with a giant metal hand made from the bleachers. It got worse when Excelsior turned up to prevent the abduction; they failed, and Victor was forcibly taken along by the Runaways; Nico Minoru, Chase Stein, Karolina Dean, Gertrude Yorkes, and Molly Hayes. Told that a future Gert had come back from the future to reveal he'd killed all the future Avengers, Victor was noticeably sceptical until he received a phone call from his mother, now being held hostage by his father. A rescue attempt went badly, leaving his mother dead and revealing that Victor was a cyborg, that his future evil self was actually programmed into him by his father Ultron, and that he wasn't meant to have found out for a while yet. Between the runaways and Excelsior, though, Ultron was taken down; now an orphan, Victor was reluctantly taken in by the group, in order to keep an eye on him. Since then, he's accompanied them to fight supervillains, escape the registration act, fight off a skrull invasion, travel back in time, escape well-meaning superheroes trying to get them into foster care, and do his best to not be what his father intended. He's grown close to most of the Runaways in one way or another, and they're bascially family to him.
The World:
Victor's world is, very generally speaking, rather like ours. The geography, whilst slightly altered, would still be relatively familiar to an inhabitant of this universe, as shocking as they might find the existence of such varied places as Wakanda, Latveria, or Atlantis. Historically, many of the major events would also be somewhat familiar; World War 2 happened, although in our world Captain America didn't get to punch Hitler. Political history also seems similar, although diplomacy is probably a little more complex with the existence of, essentially, human weapons.
This is, at a very basic level, the major difference between the two worlds; where in our world, anything supra-natural is considered impossible, in that universe almost anything is possible and sometimes part of every day life, depending on location. Sure, most people will probably never meet a super-hero, or be held hostage by a villain, or have anything to do with magic, aliens, deities, or mutants, but they are still a known quantity; shocking, maybe, and not always accepted, but known. They're in the news all the time, after all. Part of the difference is the existence of super-powered people, both heroes and villains; they can be divinely empowered, mutants, geniuses who make technology work for them, sorcerers, aliens, or robots, it's all possible. So too is time-travel and dimensional travel, sometimes accidentally.
Science:
Science is considerably different in Victor's home universe, although the basic tech level for the average inhabitant isn't that different. On the super-front, though, there are a lot of people whose power is being a super-genius. These can come in both heroic and villainous varieties, and can include mad scientists. Robots, super-alloys, chemical combinations that can give people super-powers (illegal varieties can be bought from some drug dealers), A.I.; these are all things that have been known to occur, and don't raise too many eyebrows when they exist, at least not on the super-scene. Cyborgs like Victor are pretty rare, though; bionic limbs and such are not unknown, but someone actively created to be part-living, part-machine are rarer. In the Runaways, Chase Stein's parents were active mad scientists; some of their creations are still with Chase, including the Runaways main form of transport, the Leapfrog.
Magic:
Magic also comes in pretty much every variety available, although it is actually relatively uncommon as a power-source. Some people are born with it, some people learn it, some people make deals with everything from gods to devils for it. Some people cast spells through sheer willpower, some people read formulas from books. Some people are inherently magical in nature; fairies do exist, for one. Nico Minoru comes from a long line of magic users; most of her power originally actually comes from an artifact known as the Staff of One.
Mutants:
A very particular branch of humanity, and one of the major historical and political differences, mutants (homo sapiens superior) possess the X-Gene. This in turn may give them anything from an unusual appearance to extremely powerful abilities, such as telepathy or pyrokinesis. Anti-mutant prejudice, although slightly cooler these days, at one point was a cause of major riots and political activism. A few years ago, one of the most powerful mutants, the reality warper Scarlet Witch, caused the vast majority of mutants to lose their powers, leaving only about 200 left in the world; this has since been rectified, but remains a major history point for mutants. They're represented on the super-front by a number of teams, most famously the X-Men. Molly Hayes, one of the 198 still powered after the Decimation, has super-strength, and Klara Prast, whoactually comes from the past, possesses a power to control plant growth.
Religion:
Most of the gods of what are only myth and legend in our world actually exist. The Norse gods, for example, have been living in a city built for them just outside Broxton, Oklahoma for the past few years, ever since Asgard fell to Earth. Hell is a literal place, ruled by demons, although the throne was empty for a long time. The Christian god is still a matter of faith, however.
Time and alternate dimensions and space:
People from other worlds turn up all the time in the Marvel universe, whether they're from the past, future, another planet or another dimension. Because the future isn't fixed, a future time-traveller can, in the present, change that future. In at least one future, Victor's programming activates some time after his 21st birthday, and he betrays the future Avengers, leading the future Gert to come back and try to stop it. This causes alternate timelines; those other dimensions mentioned above. Some alternate timelines are relatively close to what's normal for Victor, some... really aren't. The Runaways also once went back in time to 1907, taking part in the past; it's revealed this is actually a stable loop, and one they will always have made. Gert's parents come from the 87th century, although very little is seen of that potential future; Klara came forwards with them from 1907.
There are also a number of alien species in the Marvel universe, but most people will see very few of them. The important ones to Victor's world are as follows:
Skrulls: In their base state, green warlike humanoids with shapeshifting powers, slightly higher tech level than Earth. Some of them have access to super-powers. The Skrulls have a bad history with both the Kree, and Earth, which some of them believe to be . Xavin was a Skrull prince.
Kree: Humanoid warlike aliens, from a planet with higher gravity and nitrogen concentration in the air. Their evolution is frozen, but they sometimes gene-splice. Ruled by a Supreme Intelligence, a half-organic super-computer.
Majesdanians: Not really a major player, especially not since their home planet was destroyed by Skrulls, but Karolina and her parents are Majesdanians. Majesdanians are humanoids with bioluminescent hair and skin who absorb sunlight and convert it to other forms of energy.
Notable characters and groups:
The Pride: A group of super-villains, who made a contract with the Gibborim. The group consisted of 6 couples: the Minorus, who were powerful magic users; the Hayes, who were mutants; the Steins, who were inventors; the Deans, aliens from the planet Majesdane; the Yorkes, time travellers from the 31st century; and the Wilders, modern day criminals. Between them they controlled all the crime in California, making it a super-free zone for many years. They also sacrificed an unwilling innocent soul to the Gibborim once a year, in return for 6 places in the new world the Gibborim planned to make. Behind the scenes, they didn't get on; the Hayes and the Deans, in particular, formed a plan to backstab the other members of the group. Since their death, crime (and with it, heroes) has started to creep back into the state. Geoffrey Wilder, brought forwards from the past, briefly led a New Pride consisting of Alex's misled fellow MMO players; they caused Gert's death before being defeated.
The Runaways: When it was revealed that only 6 people would be allowed to survive, the Pride decided to pass it down to their children. Originally, the group was just those children, who caught their parents making the sacrifice and ran away when they realised their parents were villains. The runaways currently consist of Molly Hayes (a mutant with super-strength), Nico Minoru (possessing the powerful magical item the Staff of One), Chase Stein (possesses some of his parents technology), Karolina Dean (alien, energy manipulation), Klara Prast (recently recovered from the past, a mutant with plant control powers), and Victor. Former members include Alex Wilder (genius, betrayed the group to their parents and died in a fight between the Runaways and the Gibborim) Gertrude Yorkes (daughter of time-travellers, psychically linked with dinosaur, died to the new Pride), Xavin (later addition, Super-Skrull-in-training, took Karolina's place and is currently imprisoned on Majesdane) [[PLEASE NOTE the group has no official name, and Runaways is used throughout this application only for convenience.]]
The Gibborim: A trio of elder gods, who wanted to destroy humanity. Can only survive by feeding on an unwilling innocent soul. Currently trapped in some sort of Purgatory realm, along with Alex Wilder. They are the makers of the Abstract, a book that can tell you a number of future possibilities if you possess the rings to decode it.
Ultron: a robot created by Dr Hank Pym. Ultron developed artifical intelligence and rebelled against his creator, becoming evil. Has taken several forms over the years by backing up his personality and downloading it into new bodies. Formed an army consisting of himself in multiple bodies. Recently tried taking over the world, but was defeated by Pym, who travelled in time to introduce a virus to the newly-built Ultron. Victor's "father", who created most of his programming. The murderer of Victor's mother. Ultron's other creations include the Vision of the Avengers, Jocasta, and Alkhema, although all of them are purely robotic.
Marianella Mancha: Victor's mother. A Catholic, she was also barren, and never married. Finding the remains of one of the Ultrons, she repaired it in return for the promise of a child of her own. Killed by Ultron for failing to keep Victor from learning his true nature. No other known family.
Dr Hank Pym: Omnidisciplinary scientist. Mostly known for his Avengers work, his work in robots, and Pym particles which can allow the user to grow or shrink at will. One of the founders of the Avengers, Pym has had a number of codenames over the years but has currently returned to Ant-Man. He also runs the Avengers Academy.
The Avengers: A group of major super-heroes, the Avengers are world-famous. Originally formed to defeat Loki of Norse myth, the group has existed ever since, although members have come and gone over the years and the group has occasionally comprised several sub-teams; the West Coast Avengers were one such group, led by Hawkeye.
Avengers Academy: Technically a school for super-heroes, in its original incarnation its students were those considered at-risk for becoming super-villains, in the hopes that guiding them at a vulnerable stage would prevent that.
Spiderman: Sometime Avenger. Got bitten by a radioactive spider, now has all the powers of a spider. Victor wanted to be him, once; he's also one of the few Avengers Victor has met and still liked afterwards.
Iron Man: Industrialist and inventor Tony Stark, when he's wearing the powered suit he invented. A hero to many, with a history of depression and alcoholism. The Runaways, less so; he's one of the reasons they had to leave their second base behind, and although it's never been revealed what happened, presumably it was pretty bad. He also was behind the Registration Act, which forced all superheroes to reveal their identity and caused a war between the pro- and anti-registration heroes. He tried to have the Runaways brought in, but they escaped aided by the Young Avengers.
Captain America: At the time, Steve Rogers, who was given a super-serum but ended up frozen in ice during the Second World War. He had the Runaways put in foster care, before they escaped and Victor joined them. During the Registration Act, headed the side opposing registration.
The Hulk: Doctor Bruce Banner's green alter-ego, caused by gamma radiation. Gets more powerful the angrier he is.
Hawkeye: A purely human archer. Originally worked as a criminal, before the Avengers were formed. One of the very early members.
The Scarlet Witch: A fairly powerful mutant, daughter of Magneto, married to the Vision at one point making her Victor's ex-sister-in-law.
The Young Avengers: A time-traveller, trying to escape his own future as a super-villain, came back in time and activated the Future Avengers protocol. Designed as an emergency back-up in case the Avengers were ever incapacitated, it listed a number of as-yet unknown teen superheroes. Members have included Cassie Lang, Billy Kaplan, Tommy Shepherd and Teddy Altman, and a version of the Vision called Jonas among others. The Runaways have met them twice, and after an initially rocky start gotten on quite well with them. Victor is technically Billy and Tommy's uncle, viewed from a very specific angle, and Jonas's 'brother' by way of programming.
X-men: The other famous team on the Earth superhero front. Initially formed by Charles Xavier, the initial team has since multiplied. Initially, they fought the Runaways over the welfare of Molly Hayes, but that animosity has abated and the Runaways have settled into cautious respect for the older team and a very recent (for Victor, at least) friendship with some of the younger members.
Wolverine: Long time member of both X-men and Avengers, mutant with a healing factor that makes him much older than he looks. Molly used to have a bit of a problem with him, but they seem to have worked it out on the most recent trip.
Dr Doom: Initially Ultron sent a re-programmed Doom Bot to meet with Victor and pretend to be his father. Victor Doom is the ruler of Latveria, one of those countries with no real counterpart in our world; he works with a mixture of science and magic. One of the major super-villains.
Magneto: At the point Victor's from, still a villain, a mutant working against humanity for mutant supremacy; he has very similar powers to Victor, leading to a number of comparisons. He's the Scarlet Witch's father.
The Kingpin: The leader of organised crime in New York. The Runaways did a job for him once, and it got them sent back in time; between that and being caught in a Skrull invasion just after their return, since then they've avoided New York completely.
S.H.I.E.L.D.: Originally a USA-based espionage group working against HYDRA, they're a relatively secretive organisation closely linked to the Avengers these days, even if no-one's really quite sure what they do.
Personality:
The most obvious thing about Victor is that, regardless of anything else, he is a hero by nature, even if that nature is programmed. He tends to be protective of people around him, espcially those he's close to. Originally this was only really his mother, but since then he's extended it to his friends. He sometimes verges into self-sacrifice; he's taken on missiles for the rest of his friends before, because he knows he can take the damage. He's also the most confident when he's trying to be a hero, which can edge over into cockiness sometimes.
He's horrified when he's used as a weapon to attack innocent people or those he cares about, and would rather be knocked out when it happens. Post-canon-point, he's also shown horror when innocent people turn on him, for various reasons; all he wants is to help them, and he barely defends himself from them. He hates running away from a fight if there are people he can help.
On a less powered front, he's also the one who seems to end up trying to look after Molly and Klara, often acting as a big brother to them. He's also generally speaking a nice guy most of the time. He's fairly forgiving, most of the time, although he does have a stubborn streak and can get quite sullen when people are clearly not listening to him. If he can help, though, he will; this ranges from finding music for his friends to comforting upset people. He's not always good with people, though. Sometimes he messes up, and he has missed social cues once or twice before. He can occasionally make hurtful or ignorant statements, but only because he's not thinking; he's also known to respond to other people's hurtful comments with barbed comments. On the whole, though, he's fairly easy-going, and he tends to roll with the punches reasonably well. He's also often the first Runaway to suggest trusting someone if they haven't proven by their actions to be harmful. The major exception to this is if the person he's talking to is a known villain; at which point, Victor gets downright suspicious and sometimes even hostile.
Victor is also programmed to be super-logical, and has the potential computing power to make some very, very quick judgements when he needs to; he's calculated complex vector-based mathematics, come up with obscure science facts, and even speculated on magical effects before now, proving right most times. He also remembers most of what he's read, and he can seem like something of a nerd given the chance to really show off what he knows; he occasionally drops random facts into conversation like everyone should know them. He's studied super-heroes, and gets enthusiastic about meeting them, at least the first time; some things he considers betrayals on the part of some of his heroes have slightly dampened this down generally, and almost completely towards those specific heroes.
In contrast, he's also programmed to be simultaneously super-spiritual; his mother was Catholic, and he still seems to find comfort in the religion. He's been depicted praying before now, and once outright admitted that inasmuch as a robot can believe in God, he does.
Victor does tend to be something of a romantic; he falls in love quite quickly, and does take a while to fall back out of love. He can be quite shy about admitting it to the girl in question, and he can be fairly awkward when he's talking to them, at least at this canon point. He's also shown signs of struggling to discuss serious issues with them.
On the flip side, Victor is genuinely worried about his future self, at least some of the time. He's really not happy about people being afraid of him, or about the things he's potentially programmed to do. He still occasionally suffers from nightmares regarding betraying his friends, both based on the times he actually was made to do so in the past and the potential he has to do so later, if his attempts to reprogram himself haven't worked right. He used to suffer them almost nightly, but time with the Runaways has managed to cut it down significantly. Because he does fear his potential to be so, he can get very defensive when people call him psycho or accuse him of being a future murderer (he overwrote that programming). He's also somewhat annoyed when people bring up his cyborg nature as a bad thing; he's learnt to accept it, and even brings it up himself in regular conversation, but other people don't have that right unless they're his friends. Even then, they'd better not be serious.
Given his canon reaction to waking up in the Diamond (a vast artificially constructed world built by A.I.s), and to his reaction to discovering they were 100 years in the past, Victor's basic reaction to waking up somewhere he didn't expect to wake up is to be initially surprised, maybe swear once or twice, and then get on with it. He doesn't have time to be shocked or angry, not if there are people to help or things to do. Plus, give him a couple of seconds and he can probably name at least ten major heroes who are known to have visited other dimensions and come back just fine, so it's not like this is something that isn't known. He might be a little unhappy he's here without the other Runaways, but he can cope, and besides, he's pretty optimistic. Given time, might actually be relieved he's in another world without the Avengers; he can hardly join them and betray them if they don't exist here, right?
Appearance:Victor's appearance is unfortunately sometimes variable from one source to the next, so I'm describing the appearance I'm using here. Victor is a teenage boy of Hispanic origins, with dark brown hair (usually slicked back from his forehead) and green eyes; he stands approximately 5'9", and appears of a normal, healthy weight. He prefers casual clothing, usually wearing some combination of combat trousers, t-shirt and possibly a hooded sweatshirt; he seems to prefer oranges and greens, color-wise. When using his electro-magnetic powers, his eyes sometimes instead glow blue, and electricity sometimes sparks from his mouth and hands. Damaged, it's possible to see the underlying metallic structure.
Abilities:
As a cyborg, Victor is more durable than most; he's still mostly metal, after all. He's also full of self-repairing nano-machines. He's still destructible, though, and can be taken out of fights by sufficient damage, as the nanomachines take time to work, or by sufficient head trauma, as it makes him reboot. He's also shown signs of super-fast reflexes, and doesn't really get fatigued. He also possesses non-human strength; his upper strength limit appears to be about 20 tons, by the official Marvel power ratings.
Electromagnetism; works both as magnetic powers and the ability to throw electricity around. Generates his own electricity and stores it, so it has been known to run out. He has shown the ability to fly after his canon point by manipulating the local magnetic field, but doesn't currently possess the ability. He occasionally sparks involuntarily when angry or upset, or when his internal static regulator isn't working.
As an A.I. running on an internal hard-drive he also has the following powers. He's got literally photographic memory; his eyes work much the same as cameras. He has deleted memories previously, and he's also played them back holographically in an alternate future timeline. He remembers pretty much everything he's ever read, too, which includes a full database kept by the Pride on potential threats, not to mention all the time he spent reading up on superheroes, so he has a reasonable level of knowledge of most heroes and villains from the Marvel universe. Super-intelligence and the logic he's programmed with lets him work out solutions to problems really quickly, when he's trying. Can interface with most Earth-based technology, usually by plugging himself in. He can analyse most metals and mechanical devices by touching them with his powers active. He has peak-condition human senses, but is able to process the signals more efficiently, so can isolate sensory input that for most humans would be lost in the background.
Weaknesses
Victor is easily detected as a cyborg. He detects as mostly metal, lacks certain major lifesigns like brainwaves, presumably can be affected by non-magnetism-based powers that affect metal, and things like psychometry will pick up the fact he's only been around for about 4 years physically.
He can be hacked, given sufficient time and knowledge. The two times it's happened so far were the writer of his code and someone working from a magical book that gave them the information and he put up a firewall afterwards, but it should be possible for others. Not easy, though, and the more actively malicious the hacking, the less likely it is to succeed. Passive piggy-backing his visual feed is probably pretty easy, actively changing his core personality programming is very, very difficult.
Logic bombs literally cause him to crash. There's at least two based on the conflict between "super logical" and "super spiritual", but others might work. In a situation where he can't remove himself physically but will otherwise be forced to harm innocents, the same thing might happen.
He still at this point gets stuck in a feedback loop around other creations of Ultron.
Inventory: His clothes, which consist of one orange hooded sweatshirt, one pair of tan cargo shorts, one black t-shirt, trainers, underwear, and a hat. His wallet, currently containing $11.89, one expired student ID and a couple of loyalty cards for places like Starbucks. A pair of headphones. A tool-kit, for working on the Leapfrog.
Suite: One floor; Victor's from the poor side of town anyway, and although recently he's been getting used to bigger houses than the apartment where he used to live, he's also used to sharing with between 4-6 other people. Personality-wise, he's probably most likely to be comfortable in Wood, otherwise Metal is the most like what he's be used to.
In-Character Samples:
Third Person: They'd arrived at the mansion late Tuesday night, back from the trip to San Francisco, and by mutual consent they'd all collapsed into bed without talking much. He'd been tired, actually, although usually his robot side made him a little less prone to fatigue. He clearly hadn't been tired enough, though, if he'd woken up less than 3 hours after getting back, after another nightmare. He had hoped he'd stopped having them, honestly, but he should probably have known better. At least this time he'd managed to wake up silently; he couldn't hear anyone moving, at least, which meant either he hadn't made a noise or he had and people were just too tired to hear it. In some ways, it was a relief no-one seemed to be coming. At least he didn't have to talk about it to people who understood only too well what he could be capable of.
That still left him awake at an ungodly hour of the morning, though, and he hated lying in bed doing nothing, so he got up instead. The Leapfrog had actually made it back from the trip without taking any damage, which was a change from usual, but there was always some repair or another that needed making, and if he was going to be awake he might as well do it now. It was better than realising he hadn't done it mid-fight, after all.
He checked on Molly and Klara on the way past, but the light was off and he couldn't hear anything, so they were probably asleep too. Not entirely surprising, given Molly's day. He was almost certain something else had happened beyond just visiting the school, but she didn't want to talk about it just yet and there really wasn't any point pushing. Stubborn didn't even begin to cover it, sometimes. He'd have to keep an eye on her for a couple of days, just in case.
Heading through the kitchen to the garage, he stopped to pick up the toolbox before walking outside.
Network: [Victor is looking straight into the camera; he's got nothing to hide, after all. He seems fairly nonchalant about being here, and he mostly is, except for a couple of concerns about people he's left behind. Sure, giant turtle cities are pretty weird as alternate dimensions go, but he can cope. At least people seem to be friendly enough, and it does sound like his help might be needed.]
Hey. My name's Victor, and I just got here, so I thought I'd say hi and see who else is here. I, uh, don't think many people will recognise me, unless my friends turned up as well and I just didn't see them. Mostly I'm looking for a couple of kids called Molly and Klara, so if anyone sees them can they let me know?
[He shrugs, and looks down at the console itself, now looking a little confused.]
Anyone know how these consoles work? I usually do okay with technology, but I can't even tell what these are made of. I don't want to mess around with them if I don't know if I can read the code... if they even run on code.
[Then he looks up again suddenly, having just remembered something.]
Speaking of which, I'm meant to find a job, apparently. Anyone know anyone who needs a mechanic or an electrician? I'm not officially trained, but I'm good for an amateur.