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Will Black
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In the middle of the twentieth century there was a somewhat prominent hero called Oscuros, an alien psionic who wore distinctive black armor. In the year 2001, the original Oscuros left Earth to explore deep space, entrusting his identity to his once-estranged son. Will chose not to appear in the guise of Oscuros, instead finding his own path, until late 2008. As to the man himself, Will Black is known as a former teen hero turned successful musician who has been fairly popular for the last few decades.
Personal Connections
Edit
Solomon Mycroft, fiancee. Liam Black, son. Terra Black, sister. Ivy Black, sister. Samuel Black, brother.
BackgroundEdit
Prologue Part One: Born Among the StarsEdit
Planet "Haven" -- Sometime within the last century.
Our story begins on a small, tropical planet called Haven. The people of this world were all mentally adept, with minds evolved far beyond those of Earthlings. When the child William Black was born, it could be seen from the start that he would posses powerful psionic talents. (His name actually translates literally into "Protector of the Black Stone," but because he eventually chose to name himself "William Black" in English, that is the name which shall be used for the purposes of this background.) William spent the first few years of his life living happily on the peaceful planet, the son of an astrophysicist and an engineer.
When he was six years old, William's parents embarked on a journey across the stars to begin surveying the solar systems surrounding their own.Their vessel, the "Hope," was largely automated but spacious enough for the little family to live on board quite comfortably. William assisted with small things, and learned to pilot by the time most children were learning to swim.While he could not assist his parents in their research, he kept up his studies to satisfy the curiosity of his highly intelligent mind.At times he was even allowed to help with simple things, like stellar cartography. Prologue Part 2: Paradise Lost
Prologue Part Two: Paradise LostEdit
Unknown Star System -- Approximately ten years later.
One day, when William was 10, his father entered the family quarters. He was pale, and spoke in hushed tones with his wife. The two of them dashed to the command deck and quickly piloted the massive ship out of the solar system, and did their best to hide it is a nearby asteroid field. Once this was finished, William's father sat him down and very delicately explained that their home planet had been destroyed. It seemed that a race of interstellar biotech-wielding hunters known as the Chon had swept in, destabilized the orbit of Haven's moon, and caused the smaller planetoid to crash into the surface of its parent, destroying them both. As a research vessel, the Hope carried no armament and only minimal defenses. The Chon had both advanced weapons and propulsion, so neither fight nor flight was an option.
Knowing that they were directly in the invaders' path, William's parents put him into the Hope's lifepod and jettisoned him into hyperspace. Standing resolutely side-by-side on the command deck of their starship, the couple faced down the Chon with nothing more than their mental powers to defend them. They went to their deaths, but they died with their dignity and honor intact. William felt them die, heard their last mental whispers that they loved him, that he had to be strong. Then he was alone. A few weeks later, he crash-landed on a planet, the name of which translates roughly as "Trendol."
Prologue Part Three: Beating the SystemEdit
Planet "Trendol" -- 47 days later.
Trendol was once a nice planet. That was before the Great War, which nearly caused the destruction of its entire population. After the war, Trendol was the crime capitol of the Galaxy. Its cities lay in ruins, and its skies and oceans were horribly polluted. After crashing, William lived his life on the streets for five years. He became as fierce as any of the other scum there -- it kept him alive. It was during this time that his inherent psionic abilities began to develop, and he had to use every bit of cleverness and power he had to keep up with the other, much more dangerous street rats. Still, he managed to live five years in these conditions on his own, never even speaking to another person.
At the age of 15, William was captured by one of the few remaining police units. Only one government had survived the war, and had been engaging in attempts to repair some of the wartime damages. William was put into a rehabilitation program, designed to make strays into "Model Citizens" by conditioning them into being passive and obedient. William avoided the system, his advanced mental abilities making the attempts at brainwashing rather fruitless. He excelled in their educational program, and before he was finally released at age 25, had mastered the fields of engineering, physics, various earth-related sciences, computers, and mathematics to a point to a level far beyond that of Earth. He also had some medical training, and benefited from the physical regimen of the program. He devoted all of his spare time to developing his innate psionic skills.
After William's release, he built a small underground compound beneath a ruined city on Trendol. He designed an advanced super computers and an AI to govern it, and put them towards the goal of saving his people. He had a theory to make time travel possible, and so he constructed a time window, designed to allow him to go back and warn his planet before the Chon arrived. In time, he completed the window.
Prologue Part Four: Failure and Fleeting HappinessEdit
Planet "Earth" -- July 16, 1949.
He failed. William stepped through the portal, but did not appear on the planet of Haven. He had made grievous error in his calculations, and had transposed the spacial and temporal coordinates -- effectively, he moved through the /third/ rather than the /fourth/ dimension: space, instead of time. This sent him hurtling across the galaxy, and he was eventually deposited on planet Earth, only a matter of months after his release from the Trendolian authorities. It took him a while to adjust to the change and to overcome the bitterness of failure, but he eventually found a place in society. This was when he first officially took the name William Black, the best English translation he could get of his birth name. For the next two years, William attended school, mainly receiving certifications for the education he already had. When this time was past, he now officially held doctorates in engineering and quantum physics.
He met his wife at the school, and they were married shortly after her graduation in 1952. They loved each other dearly, and a year later their son William Black II, usually called just "Will," was born. They lived happily together as a family for several years, living in the luxury of modest wealth. Dr. Black was able to use his natural inclination towards the sciences and his knowledge of advanced alien technology to create inventions which sold for considerable sums of money, and he kept all of the patents in his own name. They purchased an expensive home in the countryside. Finally, William had found happiness... but this was not to last.
Prologue Part Five: The End of the BeginningEdit
Honshu, Japan -- December 12, 1959 to October 10, 1969.
Dr. Black's great success drew the attention of organized crime, and a Yakuza family boss became interested in his fortunes. She told Dr. Black that she wished to purchase the patents to some of his inventions, though at a "privileged" price. This, she emphasized, was an offer which he would be wise to accept. Ignoring the criminal's threats, Black refused the deal and continued his work. Overconfident, he did not fear what might happen to him. He never realized that it was not he who would be the target until it was too late. Six years after the birth of his son, William Black's world came crashing down around him.
The woman he had brushed off was known only as Sakura, and she was one of the deadliest Yakuza bosses of the time. One day, while Black was out of town on business, Sakura's agents broke into his home. They destroyed all the furniture and personal items, murdered his wife, and kidnapped his young son. William came home to find everything he cared about taken from him... Distraught with grief, and thinking his son dead, he packed up a few things and vanished from society. Setting up a headquarters in an asteroid belt, he remained in isolation for ten years before reemerging as the hero called Oscuros. He eventually met a very unique woman named Jessica Quinn; they fell in love and joined in Lifebond in 1969.
But this is not the story of Dr. William Black. This is the story of his son.
Chapter One: The Life of MunaEdit
Sakura's Manor, Japan -- December 12, 1956 to May 13, 1963.
Muna sometimes dreamed about his life before he was captured. He had a real mother and father, and a real name. He still knew his real name, even though he pretended to have forgotten. Muna was, in broad terms, a slave. His proper title was "ward," but he was in reality little more than unpaid labor. Of course, initially, the rather brave and self-assured six-year-old, despite having just witnessed the murder of his mother, had refused to do as he was told. He would not cooperate, and demanded justice for what had been done. It was for this that Sakura first struck him, and for which she beat him. Over many months of such abuse, the boy's once-indomitable willpower was broken, and he a mass of battered flesh and tears... but those would be the last tears he would shed for over a decade. He was branded on the shoulder, marking him as mere property, and declared the "Mistress's" slave. In the years to come, no matter what torture or cruelty he faced, he never cried or wept, though he was sometimes made to scream... By the time he was ten, he had completely transitioned into the mind set of a slave, and had begun training to be a useful lackey.
He spent the years in captivity, living a meager, isolated existence, and receiving severe beatings from his sadistic, newfound Mistress whenever he did anything that displeased her in the slightest, and occasionally for no reason at all. His only contact with other people came from his Mistress, the servants who taught him how to do the various work she demanded of him, and of an aged martial arts master who was instructed to train Muna into a fighting machine, and did so savagely, with intent to make Muna totally loyal to his Mistress. On his twelfth birthday his Mistress had a surprise for him... he had graduated to being beaten with a bullwhip. For the first time in years, she left him unable to move for some days after, just from the sheer brutality of the treatment.
Chapter Two: Breaking PointEdit
Sakura's Manor, Japan -- March 4, 1964 to May 13, 1966.
By the time he was fifteen, Muna had become accustomed to receiving such a beating nearly every day, and was able to continue functioning in his various duties despite this fact. His life changed drastically, though, when he discovered his powers. His captors were surprised to discover that the boy was naturally able to generate a massive electrical charge, the first of his budding psionic powers. Muna was studied and evaluated by scientists, and then a new job was forced in amongst all his others: learn to use his powers, so that he might serve as a soldier for his Mistress. The next year was spent honing his powers, slowly developing his control. A part of him realized that with his abilities he could leave... but he was too afraid. He might never have left Sakura, had she not inflicted one final cruelty upon him.
One day, instead of giving him his usual beating, she had him cleaned up, put into nice clothing, and brought up to her room. She told him that he had a choice... another beating, or... something that "wouldn't hurt." Unwittingly, Muna chose the option that would not hurt... and was rather shocked when his Mistress removed first his clothing, then her own... and attempted to force him to sleep with her. In his terror, he entered the astral plane for the first time, and did not return to the physical plane again until he emerged on the other side of the planet... It was there that he heard about a place called the United States of America. It sounded like a good place to him, so he made his way there.
Chapter Three: Freedom, Heroism, and RedemptionEdit
New York City, USA -- May 18, 1966 to June 30, 1980.
"Muna" had pretended for years that he did not remember his real name, but he had secretly kept his precious memories as clear as he could. So, when he arrived in New York City, he returned to using the name given him at birth: Will Black. He took up residence in a Chinatown dojo, where he met a street fighter in his 20's named Shay. Shay taught Will many things, both about himself and the world, and eventually introduced him to the people who would become his heroic allies. Over the next decade, a new teenage hero appeared on the scene. He called himself "Surge," wearing a flashy blue and gold costume, and displayed electrical powers. He joined a group of other young Metahumans, fought alongside them as a comrade in arms, and dated one of the group, a girl named Gwen. The team last a few years before disbanding in 1969 as a result of the Metahuman Relocation Act.
Having found he had a natural talent for music, Will and some of his former teammates formed a band. Against all expectations, they got popular and spent a brief few years at the top of the charts before fading into obscurity in the year of the bicentennial. It was then, having struck out on his own, that he learned of his father's whereabouts. Dr. Black had moved on, remarried, and -- in Will's perspective -- completely forgotten him. Overcome with anger, Will showed up on December 20th of 1979, the date which corresponded most closely with his father's birthday, and interrupted the celebration. At first, father and son had quite a bit of trouble reconciling... but Jessica Quinn-Black was able to make them come to peaceful terms. In time, Will came to see Jessica as a surrogate mother, and while he and his father never became as close as Dr. Black might have wished, they established a polite friendship.
With the coming of the next year, Will's younger sister Terra was born, and then life got even more interesting. For the first time in over twenty years, the Blacks were a family again. It was Jessica who jokingly coined the term, "The Clan Black" ...and it stuck.
Chapter Four: The New Millennium ApproachesEdit
Various locations -- July 4, 1980 to March 3, 1994.
Officially retired from "hero" work, Will agreed to let his father "train him properly" in the use of his psionic powers. He was instructed in other respects as well, getting the education that his father had never before been able to give. In this way they formed a new bond, not as father and son but master and pupil. During these years they traveled widely, visiting many countries of the world. Sometimes they would stay with the locals, and sometimes they would simply sleep under the sky in the wilderness. While Will never developed his father's love of mathematics, he found language and the sciences fascinating. From natural history to psychology, he had found a new passion... understanding how things work, finding the "whys" hidden in reality.
Will learned to regulate his body more efficiently just so he could get by with less sleep, spending his nights absorbed in astronomical observations and reading classic works of both fiction and science. Perhaps it is not entirely fair to say that he never took to mathematics at all, for it was during this time that he truly developed his ability to /write/ music. Listening to sounds recorded from natural settings or even deep space, he composed symphonies and came up with new material. For the first time in his life, he gained confidence in his own mental capacity and became happy with who he was. After long years of doubt and insecurity, this new inner peace was a bliss such as he had never known. For almost twenty years, he focused on nothing more than developing his mind and emotional self.
Chapter Five: New Challenges Bring New MeaningEdit
New York City, USA -- March 3, 1994 to March 23, 2000.
So, as Terra grew past her baby years and into a young lady, Will was learning the ways of the Force. Well, not really, but you get the idea. Regardless, the twenty-first century found Will in command of much more advanced abilities, though he lost some of the raw power of his electrical charge. Now, his energies were focused, refined into more "classic" psionic powers. Now in his forties but still looking only twenty-something, Will started dating again, and revived his music career. He never quite became a superstar, but achieved great critical acclaim. He ended up with a select but loyal following and a rather nice personal income. Never quite adjusted to "normal" Human sexuality, he had experiences with a few men as well as women, and it turned out that one of his more serious -- and in the end, unpleasant -- relationships was with a man.
Murchad was a brilliant geneticist, but he was also possessive and rather neurotic. After a year of being steadily involved, Will finally left the other man. He was involved with a string of women after that, but by the time he turned forty-seven, he'd sworn off romance completely. He would not find out until several years later that Murchad had saved some of his genetic material, and used it to create a son by combining their DNA. In 2000, a Chon scoutship entered Earth's solar system, and Will, Dr. Black, and Jessica joined forces to deal with them. Terra was relegated to healing the injured. In the end, the heroes won the day, and a brighter day dawned... the alien threat, it seemed, had been averted.
Chapter Six: The Torch is PassedEdit
Black Manor, USA -- March 24, 2000 to Present Day.
The Chon seemed to have been diverted from discovering Earth. Terra was now nearly old enough to look after herself, and Will was certainly old enough to keep an eye on her. So it was that father and son had a long talk. It seemed William the elder and his wife, Jessica, both desired to see if they could go and find the place where Haven had once been. They offered to take their children with them, but both Will and Terra felt that their place was on Earth. Their parents understood, and so they departed on a sort of second honeymoon aboard Dr. Black's starship, "The Hope." Together, they set out into the unknown reaches of the galaxy to meet whatever destiny might choose to lay in their path.
The next four years were quiet. Will did make appearances as Oscuros, but mostly for token reasons and to keep the identity alive as a symbol. Then, out of the blue, a lawyer called to inform him that he had been granted full custody of his son. Not having even known he /had/ a son, Will was in for a bit of a rude awakening when William Black III] arrived. Will's son was the first of the family to have a middle name, and had grown up going by "Liam." Fortunately, this made things just a bit less confusing. Since that time, Will and Liam have learned to live together, establishing a bond as father and son.
PowersEdit
Martial ArtsEdit
Will's martial arts training is master-level, the equivalent of multiple black belts in a variety of disciplines. The result is a hybrid style of fighting which combines principles from across the globe, including hard offensive maneuvers and softer defensive moves. He's not quite on the level of someone like Lady Shiva where raw skill is concerned, but he's close. Definitely beyond the level of most students of the martial arts, he would be able to do very well even in illegal gladiator tournaments, if he were inclined to enter.
However, over the years his skill in this area has become less and less focused on mere combat. Within the last two decades or so, Will has come to focus on the spiritual side of Martial Arts. Where he was once a warrior or even a master of combat, he is now a master of himself, mind and body. Even without consideration of his psychic abilities, his thoughts and movements are as close to being one as most are ever capable of becoming.
MentalismEdit
Will has decades of experience in the use of his psychic powers, and in that time has engaged in astral combat on many occasions. This ranges from times when he was training, to several life and death astral battles. He's spent a lot of time and energy combating various astral menaces along with his father, to protect the mundane population from them. He is perhaps one of the foremost mentalists on the planet. He is also experienced at traversing the astral plane. He is quite at home there, and suffers virtually none of the ill effects many psions may when engaging in astral projection. He can remain engaged in astral projection as long as he likes, the only limitation being that if he is away long enough that his body is damaged or destroyed, (perhaps from dehydration or malnutrition), he may sacrifice his ability to exist on the physical plane, effectively dying.
His various abilities include: Affect Mind, Affect Self (Bioregulation), Alien Mind, Alien Physiology, Astral Combat, Astral Resilience, Astral Travel, Clairsentience, Empathy, Energy Pool, Enhanced Speed, Flight, Psychokinesis, and Telepathy.
