Sonya Nichols saved the world several times over. As the hero Psyonix, she used her vast psychic powers to save countless innocent lives and was hailed as one of the worlds greatest heroes.
As powerful as her mind was though, her body was not so strong and her heart began to give out. The doctors were unable to find a suitable replacement in time and sadly, Sonya Nichols died in a hospital bed with her devoted husband Nathaniel by her side.
Meanwhile, a wanderer had come to Earth. A member of the alien Lor and refugee from a war light-years away, Foxx Kam’ron had grown tired of the corrupt leaders of his home system and decided to live out the rest of his life on what he thought was a much quieter world. Earth.
The telepathic Lor was physically similar enough to a human to pass as one of them and adopted the name of Cameron Fox. Looking to serve his new planet in the best way he could, Fox enlisted in the police force and began using his psychic abilities to solve crimes. He was soon promoted to detective where he encountered many of the worlds masked heroes, often aiding them in their crime-fighting.
Unfortunately for Fox. Many of those heroes would eventually play a part in his death.
When the Lor homeworld was destroyed and the republic was thrown into chaos, many alien refugees found their way to Earth where they were housed on Star Island. Fox offered his services to help his people adjust to their new surroundings and while many of them were grateful to humanity for taking them in, others chaffed under the rule of what they considered to be a lesser species. The fact that a lot of humans treated them poorly didn’t help matters.
A group of Lor Mentats (those gifted with psychic abilities like Fox) banded together in an attempt to reverse their fortunes and seize power for themselves. Their plan included using their combined mental strength to psychically manipulate the majority of the population of nearby Freedom City, including a sizable group of superheroes. One of the few heroes who were left to fend off the attack by the manipulated heroes was The Scarab, who used his vast Psychic powers to fight back. He wasn’t alone in this fight, however. Cameron Fox joined the fight and attempted to psychically subdue the other Mentats, allowing Scarab to free the heroes. Unfortunately, the mental strain of the psychic battle with the Mentat’s proved too much for Fox. Although he managed to stop them, it came at a great cost.
In the aftermath of the battle, Fox was declared brain dead. Though he was physically fine, his mind had been fried and he was now left in a vegetative state. Fox was gone. All that was left was a shell.
Fox’s adoptive family were left with a heartbreaking decision. Should they leave him in this state and hope that he somehow recovered? Or did they make the more difficult choice?
The choice was ultimately removed from their control.
While they contemplated their choices, Fox, or what was left of him, was left alone in a hospital bed. But he soon had a visitor.
Nathaniel Nichols, the husband of the late Sonya Nichols, arrived quietly in the night. He spoke with Fox as though the other man could hear him though he ultimately knew that it was more for his own peace of mind than anything. He explained himself as best he could. He explained that this was hardly an ideal situation. If there was any other option, he would have taken it. What he was about to do weighed heavily on him…but he was so tired of waiting.
Soon afterwards, the hospital lights flickered violently and an alarm blared from Fox’s room as the machines he had been hooked up to went crazy. Doctors and nurses raced to the room, quickly followed by Fox’s family. What they found surprised them all. Fox was alone and awake.
Though he seemed to have lost much of his memory, he was alive and talking and everyone was overjoyed that he was.
After several days and a battery of test, Fox was released from the hospital. He memory hadn’t returned but there was physically nothing wrong with him. The Scarab offered to help him regain his lost memories but Fox declined, stating that he had had enough of other people in his head for a while and that he would prefer to sort this matter out by himself. Scarab understood and saw no real problem with this as Fox had already displayed that he still knew how to use his psychic abilities. If he could piece things together by himself then The Scarab was happy to let him.
In the coming months, although Fox seemed to recover quickly, he also seemed to distance himself from those closest to him. Many of them stated that he seemed like a different person a lot of the time.
What no one realised at the time was that he actually was a different person.
Afraid of truly dying, Sonya Nichols had stored a copy of her psyche in a special crystal which she entrusted to her husband before her death. She planned to have Nathaniel find a suitable host body, one that was mentally dead but physically alive and use the crystal to install her psyche in the body. Ideally, it would have been a female body but Nathaniel had been unable to find a suitable body and mind that could hold the vast psychic energies of Sonya. Fox’s mind was more than capable. And, truth be told, Nathaniel had just grown tired of waiting. It had been years since he was separated from the woman he loved and if he passed up this opportunity, he may never see her again. So he implemented the plan and left. Fading into the night as “Fox” awoke and people arrived believing their loved one had miraculously come back to them. He really didn’t want to have to answer any questions right now. After all, he wasn’t even sure if it had worked.
Initially, Sonya genuinely didn’t remember anything at all. Even the details of her own life. She managed to piece to things together about Fox from mental images that streamed from the people around him that night at the hospital but her full memories quickly came flooding in. By the time they did, she had realised the emotional impact of what she had done on Fox’s friends and family so she let them carry on thinking that he had come back to them. It was the least she could do.
The more she looked at these people though, the guiltier she felt about puppeteering Fox’s body around, knowing that the person they had loved was gone.
She found Nathaniel again but he seemed uneasy around her. Uncomfortable with her new form…or uncomfortable with the ramifications of what they had done.
Sonya felt alone. She couldn’t face Fox’s friends and family so she pushed them away, trying to distance herself as gently as she could without truly hurting them. But she also felt distanced from Nathaniel. The one person she could truly be herself around…So to speak.
She was lost and confused. She didn’t know how to fix things. The one thing she did know how to do though was help people. She was good at that. Psyonix was good at that.
Sonya readopted the identity of Psyonix, albeit in a different form and returned to life as a superhero. To the outside world, it just seemed like someone knew had adopted the identity of Psyonix. It was hardly the first time someone had used the name of a previous hero after all. No one considered the possibility that it was actually the original Psyonix in a new body.
Regardless of their form though, Psyonix helped a lot of people. Battling the forces of evil alongside other heroes like Sonya had done for years. As Psyonix, Sonya finally felt like herself again. Doing what she loved and doing it well.
The universe seems determined to punish Sonya though.
Recently, she has begun to see flashes of a life not her own. She has begun to hear a voice in her head. A voice not her own but one all too familiar.
Sonya has begun to wonder if Cameron Fox is really gone after all. And if he’s not then she may just have to face the ramifications of her decisions after all.
