HeroMachine Character Portrait Creator

CDC Entry: Wildfire

Real Name: Henry Victor

Age: 15

Hometown: Chicago, IL

Powers: Fireproof, can throw fireballs, can turn all or part of body into pure flame, super speed/strength/endurance when in flame mode.

Weakness: The longer he stays in flame mode, and the more of his body in flame mode, Henry loses more and more control over himself.

When Henry was 8 years old, his parents died in a tragic car accident, and he was sent to live with his uncle. Unfortunately, his uncle hated him, and was verbally and physically abusive. One day, when Henry was 15, his uncle tried to rid himself of Henry once and for all. He pretended to leave for work, when in fact he actually just went outside the house and started a fire in an attempt to kill Henry. As he was about to die, Henry saw a strange, glowing being in the flame (the truth behind the being is still unknown). He was strangely drawn toward it, and reached out to touch it. He passed out, but was otherwise completely unharmed when firefighters found him buried beneath the rubble of his uncle's house.

In the hospital room, after he had awoken, his uncle came in feigning sympathy. In that moment, Henry realized exactly what had happened, and in a fit of rage, confronted his uncle. To his surprise, he reached his hand toward his uncle, and his hand burst into flame, setting his uncle on fire. Panicking, and realizing that he was entirely engulfed in flame, Henry ran through the hospital, accidentally killing many people in the process. He ran as far as he could, eventually jumping into lake Michigan in an attempt to extinguish himself. When he returned to himself, he went into hiding.

Penniless and alone, Henry was living in the streets of Chicago, stealing what he could and avoiding the cops and other authorities best he could. He planned to get away from the city as soon as he could to avoid arrest. It was December. In a dark alley, Henry held his arm ablaze in an attempt both to warm himself and to heat up a couple of hot dogs he had stolen. Suddenly, He was approached by the strangest group he had ever seen: Two beings, one seemingly made of smoke, the other of glass, a giant lizard man, a robotic spider, a woman who appeared to be a stripper of some sort, a young man who seemed at most a few years older than himself, and, somehow both the most normal and the most peculiar of all, a man in a crudely made Egyptian mask.

As soon as he first saw the young man, Seth knew he was seeing someone who was very powerful, very dangerous, and, if he acted quickly, very easy to manipulate. He put on an act of sympathy, listening to Henry's story, dubbing him "Wildfire," and bringing him into the team. Although his sympathy began as a ruse, Seth grew to develop a soft spot for the young man, as did many other members of the team.

As for Henry, he was just glad to feel accepted for the first time in years. He didn't realize or even really care that he was being manipulated, or that he was with the bad guys. Although Guanlong still creeped him out.

I chose the backstory that I did after realizing that all but one of the villain team members thus far is in it for personal gain, with Seth being in it to promote a political ideology. Even Smoke and Mirrors, who have a bit of a vengeance story, are still in it at least partially for the money. For that reason, I wanted to introduce a character to the team who would be at least somewhat sympathetic.

Born in Miami, Florida to a poor family, he was headed to a poor high school, with only a job as an amateur exterminator. No one suspected that he was actually BREEDING and then torturing the mice infesting the local warehouses. Suddenly, he began to win contest after bee after science fair after placement test. Some people get zits, he got smarts. His first week of high school, he figured out that a junior was bedding a principal for good grades. No one is quite sure what he sprayed on the principal’s car, but the fire department couldn’t put it out for long enough that they gave up and had it compacted into a cube and buried it in a sand pit.

He came forward and said why. “Statutory rape is a crime,” he said, “and no one believed me.” The principal went to jail, the junior was removed from the school, and he? He plead his case to the judge, explaining that he would like to serve his country, and juvenile delinquents couldn’t make much of a difference. He was bussed to Hollywood Hills Military Academy. No one imagined that he had timed his case to fall into the docket of the only judge in his jurisdiction to ever order military school as part of a juvenile sentence. No one realized that HHMA was the only shot he had of working with drones in high school. No one thought that it was all part of a greater plan.

He enlisted the day after graduation. He tested out of basic training to become a lieutenant in the Army. He shipped out while most cadets his age were still IN basic training. All the way to the Middle East, and no one in particular noticed the hacker that shuffled some five thousand applicants until he was sent to that ONE location straight out.

The last shipment to leave that section of Iraq with a cargo of C4 was delayed by onboard computer issues in the cargo planes twice. Purdue himself fixed them just before the base went dark. According to his report, he only survived by a series of coincidences and clever maneuvering. He testified that insurgents killed the other one hundred and twenty-two personnel on the base with a combination of weapons that included poison gas and explosives. They captured him with damaged dog tags. The ‘LT’ on his dog tags was so damaged that they believed it read ‘COL’ and began torturing him for information. They cut off his left toes, then his foot, then his lower leg and then his little finger and ring finger from his left hand. He said he escaped by using a combination of poison, explosives, and other weapons. No one questioned the C4 being missing, along with three million dollars’ worth of drone equipment, at least at first. No one contested his medical discharge. No one thought for a moment that he might have self-amputated. When his last physical was complete, he was released stateside, benefits pending final investigation. Five out of seven of the investigators are MIA. No one has reported finding remains of the insurgent stronghold he described. The case has been shelved, until such time as the region is considered stable enough to continue it.

When his parents and sister died while he was being shipped home, the local police looked into it. Something had blown up in their basement with an obscured chemical signature. He returned home executor and sole heir. No one had seen a drone start the fire in the paint-and-cleaner-filled basement. He started a small business. Extermination again. As the local homeless population resumed it's remarkable tendency to drop, some people he knew eventually connected him with people closer to his level of evil. He now works with the big boys.
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