>>1839NameJack Kova
SpecialtyThe Monet°Jack's body is a suppressor of powers made flesh and bone; he is literally IMMUNE and INVULNERABLE to any kind of ability, control, effect, or power originating from another being or entity. At the same time, anything produced by a Quirk that makes physical contact with him is instantly deactivated for the entire duration of that physical contact, until that object or person leaves his vicinity by at least half a meter.
Because of this, Jack's fighting style relies heavily on hand-to-hand combat. Even though his punches can pierce physical barriers, energy shields, or even muscles/skin strengthened by a Quirk, his fists deactivate Quirks during the fraction of a second they impact, he remains just as vulnerable to punches or kicks as anyone else is to his.
For this reason, all his fights end up being street brawls, so he has learned to be brutal and cruel when fighting due to his context and situation.
Basically, he turns one's power-based role into a martial arts role every time he fights, kekAge17 Years.
NationalityRussian/American
GenderMale
BackgroundBorn in Hell's Kitchen during the violent and decadent 70s, he has lived in the poor neighborhoods since he can remember. An androgynous child who was easy to abuse, with an alcoholic father and a mother who took her own life when he was too young to remember her, he had to fight his whole life just to survive. This made him an aggressive boy inclined toward violence and everything related to the underworld. Fighting for food, for respect, or simply for his pride, the only thing that mattered to him was winning. He was a self-absorbed and impulsive kid who always said what was on his mind without caring who he offended, which earned him as much respect as enemies. His father saw him as a burden, so Jack rarely spent time at home. Instead, he spent his time raising money by stealing or selling "merchandise" provided by the criminal gang controlling Hell's Kitchen, just to stay in their good graces and have a chance to join them.
Prisoner of the romanticization of the criminal world, and with a natural talent for his own ventures, he formed his own gang of kids when he was still a child; he had a reputation at that time for being truly strong, for always making money from somewhere, and for having connections with a real criminal gang, "The Iron Saints". All of that was part of his charisma, and also that, no matter how morally questionable his way of living was, his "Passion" for protecting his own and his City was also something that generated loyalty toward him. At that time, the Iron Saints, specifically their Leader who saw Jack as a replacement for his younger brother, saw Jack's potential and used him to mobilize the younger ones; he learned about hierarchies, territory, and the cold use of violence as a tool, but he was looked down upon within the group itself, mostly because of the Leader's fixation that several members couldn't explain, since Jack used to question all their decisions, including those related to drug activities.
As soon as he was 15 years old, the Iron Saints had the most infamous gang war in the country; many people died, innocents and criminals alike. The Hell Hounds burned several storefronts and city apartments to kill the Iron Saints; one of those apartments was his own. The Hell Hounds had a mutant leader with the ability to generate will-o'-the-wisps; it was literally impossible to defeat, to the point of having killed other mutants like him. During the first years when the Hell Hounds were in charge of expanding across the United States, their reign had been seen as inevitable...
...
By the time the fire had consumed the building, a figure emerged from the flames, dragging the charred body of his Father, part of his face burned and his left eye completely useless. He didn't seem conscious of what was happening, the feelings inside him being much more overwhelming than the pain or the adrenaline; the fire seemed to open the path for him, dancing around him and extinguishing upon touch, just as if it were shunning him.
He assassinated the mutant with his own hands, discovering his own identity as one of them. From that moment on, the Iron Saints took total control over Hell's Kitchen, and the Hell Hounds were completely eradicated without their main attack force, transforming from a unilateral massacre into another one, and just like that, he became one of the most important members of the Iron Saints, although the whole group seemed to worship him, most were simply scared of him; he was an abomination that killed other abominations, like a long-legged spider killing a black widow. They had made the mistake of wanting to use him... But without the leadership of the previous leader, Jack seemed to have lost interest in the Saints, just as he had grown tired of the criminal world after the incident; he was angry and alone. Instead, he had set his sights on something more substantial.
The end of the Iron Saints was slow and relatively indecorous; the most frightened fled, those who hated them were discarded. All that remained for him to do was fulfill his role efficiently while organizing and recruiting talent... "Special" talent, phenoms and pariahs of society hungry to survive in a world that hated them and to fit in wherever they could, phenoms who would be loyal only to him; Mutants. He didn't care if their powers were useful or not; he took the broken, the unwanted, as long as they had the desire to survive in the city and hated drugs. That was enough for him, mostly because he needed to give them strong conviction to face the old Saints and the rest of the criminal gangs that had parasitized the city for so long. He gave them structure, money, and a place to belong. He gave them a purpose. After a while, the Iron Saints were pushed back to their 17-year-old selves, and in their place, only he remained alongside the members he had chosen to form his new gang.
...
The Golden Saints became, in a way, even more controversial than any other criminal gang in Hell Kitchen, not because of their illicit activities, which had nothing to do with drugs anymore, but because of their reputation of being full of supposed mutants. Jack created a bastion for the most oppressed at a time when they were still a fraction of society, and somehow managed to create the closest thing to a family that people like them could have. Among their criminal activities were the typical ones: collecting "protection" money from businesses (bars, kiosks, stores, illegal betting houses) in their territory, with the excuse that the city was full of phenoms capable of reading minds or shooting laser beams from their eyes, and that they ensured such people didn't cause trouble. They controlled several docks along the Hudson River; for a fee, they ensured shipments (whether legal or not) arrived safely. There was also a personal business run by Jack, organized solely by his interest in fighting: a secret Fight Club hidden in an abandoned warehouse, a place he used to visit when he was still with the Iron Saints, before he took it over himself. He participated many times and remained the champion to this day. The bets were enormous and served three purposes: generating money, consolidating his reputation as the only man who couldn't be beaten with a Don, and acting as a recruitment tool for the Saints.
But of course, his most important operation is more than evident. The Golden Saints were known for being extremely brutal and efficient when dealing with problematic mutants, the kind who thought themselves untouchable because of their Dons. They were highly sought after by criminal families or even ordinary but desperate people who needed to deal with such a problem. They didn't discriminate by the type of Don or person; Jack was the guy you called to handle them. He became an excessively successful criminal not despite his condition as a mutant, but because he understood his value in the market...
The end of the Golden Saints came after taking a very high-paying job: they had to intercept the kidnapping of a criminal boss's daughter by a telepath capable of controlling minds through music. He took the trouble to do it far from his henchmen due to the telepath's peculiar ability, but after making the mistake of confronting him in an open space (breaking through a window while beating the aforementioned mutant), the telepath unleashed a psychic wave that hospitalized a bunch of civilians in the area in a desperate attempt to hurt the blonde. This drew the attention of Genesis Island (
?), who didn't take long to send someone to recruit the young goth and rebellious boy. Claremont, seeing the brilliant but confused young man beneath the hardened violent criminal, decided to give him a choice between two options: be left at the mercy of the authorities, end up as an experiment to neutralize mutants due to his peculiar Gift, and cause the destruction of the only family he had through his own decisions, or pay for his crimes through public service... in his new Military Academy for Gifted Youth! And learn to control his powers just as he used his mind and fists for good. Although at first his expression was one of pure disgust upon hearing the proposal, and he needed a lot of time to digest what he was about to do, the King of his concrete jungle showed what had earned him so many loyal men and why he was being recruited: he decided that protecting his Golden Saints was the most important thing to him now that he was going to be processed by the system. He had to do what he had once promised never to do...
Finish his studies
>inb4 tl;drPoor and immune mutant punk wants to be a criminal, becomes a criminal, ends up not liking criminals, his face gets burned, kills a mutant, becomes a criminal gang leader, fills it with pubescent mutants, takes care of other mutants for money, Claremont or whoever stops him, habemus origin
AspirationsServe his time, or at least what Claremont considers enough for Jack to "graduate" from that place and get out, sees the Academy as a slightly more comfortable prison than the real one. However, a part of him is curious about everything related to mutants; he had never asked himself the logic behind the abilities he has, he simply used his Gift for his benefit, to survive.
He has created a bastion for people who wanted to belong somewhere, but even during the years when he was King of Hell Kitchen, he has never felt that he belonged.