Difference between revisions of "Ophidius Rex (Justice)"

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Ophidius Rex, as a trading card.

Perfection

The Serum

Byron Schlatter began his career as a scientist working as an assistant in Aeon Corp. He worked there tirelessly attempting to come up with inventions that would win him favor. And though his inventions and ideas were often very good, he found that Aeon claimed credit for some himself (NutriPaste comes to mind), or simply dismissed it as a non-viable project. Eventually, Byron got so frustrated with this, that he went all out on one of his projects.

The serum that he had created was meant to increase intelligence in humans. It was formulated from reptilian DNA and a particular viper's venom. The venom had been engineered quite a bit to remove toxins, but still the basis of the liquid was maintained. The portion of the formula that was reptilian was designed to make the more primitive portions of a human brain (breathing and other autonomic functions) work more efficiently thus allowing the brain to take more full advantage of the other aspects of the formula that grew the reasoning and memory portions of the brain. Byron thought that if more nutrients and energy could be supplied to these burgeoning regions, that he really could increase one's capacity of intelligence... essentially, he would be artificially increasing the upper bound of a person's IQ.

Byron, lacking any lab animals to test on at the moment, the requisition forms had been lost again after he submitted them, tested the formula on himself! And, according to his initial testing, it worked wondrously. He immediately felt the effects. He could grasp new concepts more quickly, had better memory for what he had learned, and a month later had shown an increase of 20 points in his IQ. It seemed to be a fantastic success. However, with this new found gain in intellect, he spotted a few places in the formula that he could actually have made it better. He set out to make those corrections before submitting his idea to his superiors for use on the other scientists.

Unfortunately, when he finished this new batch of what he began calling Inteliv 2.0, he had failed to be as cautious in its preparation. He had not engineered the venom as thoroughly, and used different sections of DNA. And while, technically, this formula would indeed yield better results... its side-effects (which he had ignored completely) would end up being rather severe. Again, Byron tested the formula on himself. And over that same month of time, he saw a gain of another 15 IQ points. Which, while not as dramatic numerically, further usage of his original formula would likely have yielded no increase at all. Had he used this formula first, it would likely have increased his IQ by more than 40 points... however some room for increase had actually been prevented by the first formula. However, he had grown scales, developed a greenish twinge to his skin-tone, a decrease in his ability to regulate his body temperature and the growth of fangs.

Before he was fired, Byron was referred to as the "ophidian one" or simply as "Doc Snake." This more than anything infuriated him at the time.

A Foray into Madness

After his abrupt departure from Aeon Corp. he began to work in his home laboratory on many different projects. None of which were methods to undo the side-effects of Inteliv 2.0. Any scant traces of vanity he may have had left him long ago.

To assist him in his lab, he invented a series of robots. These bots were able to do many things that he could not: work without sleep, tolerate extreme temperatures, memorize and recall numerous things simultaneously etc. He began to depend on these robots quite a bit. Perhaps more than he should have considering they were, in essence, naught but another tool in his lab.

After his work with robotics started to be published, he received an inquiry from Mueller Incorporated if he would be willing to come work for them. He was somewhat flabbergasted... one usually has to seek out employment, it doesn't get handed to you with the mail (well, in his case, no mailman could bear to hand him anything). Byron joined Mueller Inc. and was pleased to see that many scientists there were just as odd as he was! He threw himself into his work. It seemed the president of the company, Jakob Mueller wasn't a scientist himself but had a great deal of respect for thinkers and the things they came up with. He received accolades on numerous occasions for his work and his assistance in the refinement of the work of others. However, his good fortune was not due to last. Byron was involved in a horrific accident that all but cost him his life. He had been burned badly, almost losing both of his hands, and his already reptilian face was further disfigured. Even he couldn't stand to look at himself in the mirror after his wounds had healed. Over time, Byron became almost hysterical at mentions of his appearance, or even when people averted their eyes. So much so, that he spent almost all of his free-time now devoted to fixing what had happened to his body.

A Species of Sanity

All of Byron's attempts at restoring his face and hands met with failure. Nothing he thought of, with his beyond genius IQ, could make much of an impact. Finally, in a last ditch attempt to fix both what he had done to himself and what a lab accident had worsened he gave up his last vestiges of caution and attempted to use an experimental time dilation device to literally turn back the hands of time. Instead, he emerged from the chamber exactly as he had left it... except that a certain kind of calm had entered him. Though the chamber did nothing to fix his physical appearance, it did allow him to experience every possible version of both past and future events. Had he not been crazy already, this trip would surely have made him that way. Byron may have calmed and forgotten his fervor for physical perfection, but he had not been cured of his near insanity. It had, however, been transformed, much like his body, into a shadow of it's former self... in this case, a far more dark and brooding shadow.

Byron went home to his lab and silently went about the work of programming his robots to complete a series of dangerous and potentially hazardous operations on his body. When complete, he laid down on the table in the clean room he had, closed the airlock, set his robots in motion and had the air began to concentrate with enough nitrous to keep him sedated until his robots had finished their operations.

When he stepped out of that clean room months later, having healed from the operations he was barely a man. His hands had been replaced by mechanical appendages, his brain had been placed inside a preservative jar eschewing the need for corrective facial surgery forever, and he had had a teleportation device installed in his chest. From that day onward, he no longer worked for Mueller Inc., and he went by the name Ophidius Rex shedding (if you'll pardon the pun) any trace of his former life. He had however, grown to understand one cardinal truth that he would embrace for the rest of his now unnatural life: perfection is a lie.

Metagame Information

— This section pertains to out-of-game information and is included for the benefit of the reader, or to include other OOC information.

Ophidius Rex began as a sort of re-imagining of Cobra Commander. He was a Mercs/Posion and I just never got into him at all. Later, he was shelved and collected dust for a long time. Then, Issue 21 rolled in and I decided he should be re-born as a Robotics/Sonic MM. And, as such, I am liking him a bit more. Also, he has been manipulated from a Cobra Commander-type character into one closer to a Dr. Mindbender mad scientist. One who has experimented on himself a good deal and has robotic parts, reptillian skin, and very likely the new brain-in-a-jar head.

Badges

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