#finding pre-2012 stages where the camera focuses on him for more than a second was. so needlessly difficult

[nugulover69]

Happy Andy Day fellow changjos, praise be the king of lumpdols

[exiledsol]

[center][img]http://imaginechat.com/memberpages/Audun/Avatars/zeroicon%20white.png[/img][/center]

[center][size=14pt][b]Zero[b][/size] Timothy Rayne[/center]

[center][img]http://orig06.deviantart.net/613e/f/2012/365/2/5/fantomex_by_shadzx2-d5psyo2.jpg[/img][/center]

[b]Origin Story:[/b] Tim Rayne was a high school history teacher and was what one could call a “normal” guy.  He spent a little too much time watching old episodes of Farscape and not enough time jogging. But this was indeed what normal people did; yes?

Even his wife getting diagnosed with cancer when she was thirty was unfortunately what one considered to be normal these days however upon receiving word on how advanced it was and that she only had six months to live; Tim took it upon himself to take a less normal approach.  Bills kept collecting and stayed unpaid due to him being denied loans from local financial institutions (Hey things are tough for everyone these days right?), and more conventional treatments were proving ineffective.  Advice offered by friends and other people from support groups wasn’t working.  He left countless messages on internet message boards that were focused on alternative forms of treatment; both legal and…not so much.

He and his wife were on month “four” of six and it seemed like the physician’s initial assessment was wrong.  Six months seemed generous now as his wife’s health was deteriorating rapidly and both Tim and his wife began making plans for the inevitable.  It was four in the morning when he received an email from an anonymous sender.

[font=times new roman][pre]“At 13:00 today go to the corner of Racine and Fifth. You will find a convenience store there. Buy the third Pay as You Go Metro! Phone from the back of the rack. Proceed one block west and enter the coffee shop there. Sit in the booth in the north-west corner. Wait for the call. It will save your wife.”[/pre][/font]

Suffice to say; after a great deal of researching and coming up with nothing in the short time he had to do so; he was waiting in booth as directed.

The call he received that day set him on an unexpected path.

A path that led to his recruitment by an “off the books” division of S.T.A.R. Labs in Salt Lake City that specialized in advanced physics.  He learned that CERN was not the only organization with an enormous hadron collider and there; so that his wife could receive the treatment she needed; he became Test Case Zero.  

Tim was experimented on repeatedly over a period of two years and when not being injected or exposed to all manner of energy and particle exposure he was being trained in hand to hand combat and firearms.

The health of Tim’s wife made an immediate improvement after one week of treatment.  S.T.A.R. Labs – Utah paid Tim’s outstanding bills and while he didn’t get to see his wife as much as he liked; he understood that this was the price to be paid for his wife’s life.

It was in his third year at S.T.A.R. Labs – Utah when his powers began to manifest.

In his fourth year he was learning just what he could do with his new found powers.

In his fifth year he was beginning to combine the physical training he had received since coming to the labs with his powers.

It was on his thirty-fourth birthday when S.T.A.R. Labs came to him with his first…what they called a mission of great importance.

He was brought into a room and told to “gear up accordingly” only to then have a monitor on the wall flicker on.  He could see a scene on the monitor that depicted a man and a woman asleep in bed.  The view was distorted some, as though he was viewing the scene through some manner of miniaturized camera but he could indeed make out that it was someone’s bedroom.

The ear bud he had inserted activated with a song tone…

[b][color=blue][font=trebuchet ms]“Zero.  Take the package from the table.  Then focus.  Relocate to the scene on the monitor.  When there...arm the package.  You will have two minutes to exfiltrate to a distance of one hundred meters.  Resistance should be expected if you are seen.  Do not engage.  Exfiltrate and relocate.  Remember your training.”[/font][/color][/b]

“Remote relocation” was something he had been working on for the last six months.  It was not easy.  Often it made his nose and ears bleed and that was pleasant compared to the headaches afterwards.

[b][color=blue][font=trebuchet ms]“Zero.  Remember your training.”[/font][/color][/b]

It took longer than he would have preferred but one moment he was in the room in S.T.A.R. Labs – Utah and the next he was in the bedroom he had been viewing in the monitor.  Things felt…wrong however.  There was the few moments of nausea as expected and the disorientation that came along with it but when he finally had cleared his head and stood over the bed he had been viewing earlier.  He understood why things felt wrong.  The couple he had been watching was the President of the United States and a woman that was certainly not the First Lady.

[b][color=blue][font=trebuchet ms]“Zero.  Remember your training.”[/font][/color][/b] , came the calm voice in his ear.  [b][color=blue][font=trebuchet ms]“Arm the package.  Exfiltrate and relocate.”[/font][/color][/b]

Tim shook his head slightly.

[b][color=blue][font=trebuchet ms]“Zero.  Remember your training.”[/font][/color][/b]

[b]“I didn’t train for this…”[/b] , he whispered out loud…more to himself than anyone in particular.  The President let out a growl in response; rolled to his side and turned his back on Tim.

[b][color=blue][font=trebuchet ms]“Zero.  Remember your training.  Remember the arrangement you have with us.”[/font][/color][/b]

He shook his head once more…trying to understand just what was going on when he heard another soft tone.  Looking down, he felt a chill wash through him as “the package” was now armed and rather than a two minute countdown, it looks as though it had started at ten seconds.

Because now it was at seven seconds!

Six seconds.

Tim was on the move.  Rushing out of the bedroom and into a hall where two armed and seemingly attentive men were utterly surprised to see him come charging out of the President’s bedroom.

[color=red]“Get on the fucking ground!”[/color] , shouted one of them.

Five seconds.

Tim blinked out of existence and appeared further down the hall only to kick open another door and run through it even as bullets snapped through the air where he was a moment before.

Four seconds.

Tim spotted something green…

[i]Outside…[/i]

…and a moment later he was outside too…except fifteen feet in the air and rapidly falling towards the ground.  He could hear alarms.  He could hear people shouting.

Three seconds.

Tim hit the ground hard and immediately scrambled to his feet.

[i]I’m at the fucking White House![/i]

Two seconds.

Everywhere he looked there were people.

Except up…

One second.

Tim pushed the maximum range of his power and appeared one hundred meters in the air above the front lawn of the White House only to then throw “the package” upwards and relocated just as the detonation occurred.

One day later; Tim’s wife passed away from advanced Stage Four cancer.  It was revealed that much of her body was riddled with cancer and it was decided that maybe her miraculous cure had just been a fortunate remission and nothing more.

One day later; it was revealed that an unregistered “meta” had taken part in a despicable act of terrorism but thankfully failed in their attempt to bomb the White House.

Tim wasn’t at his wife’s funeral and there was a good deal of speculation around why he wasn’t but in the end; it was decided that his grief was too great and he simply could not be present.

Tim Rayne disappeared after that.

One year later; yet another vigilante had appeared in Gotham City; referred to as “Zero” and seemingly taking steps to stop criminals there as well as being more inquisitive than normal about S.T.A.R. Labs.

(( While it was NOT S.T.A.R. Labs who actually experimented on Tim and tasked him with the assassination of the President; the "shadow corporation" that was responsible for this did a convincing job.  Tim is not sure if it was a division of S.T.A.R. Labs gone rogue; some manner of clandestine agenda of the over-arching  entity known as S.T.A.R. Labs or simply some manner of nefarious group that was masquerading as them.  Suffice to say; until Tim can be sure what the answer is; he's reluctant to get involved with anything remotely associated with S.T.A.R. Labs. ))

[b]Home City:[/b] Gotham City

[b]Civilian Appearance/Style Description:[/b]

[img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B_GMAd6U0AEOiMR.jpg[/img]

Tim trains daily; alternating between cardiovascular conditioning, yoga and weight training.  He fully understands that the people he is generally dealing with or up against are significantly stronger and simply..."better" than he is.  The training allows him to feel more confident; or atleast least unsure about himself.  He also finds that being in top physical condition allows himself to better absorb the rigors of teleportation.

Age - 36 Height - 6'2" Weight - 171 lbs

[b]Costume Description:[/b]

[left][img]http://static.tumblr.com/gkorcp6/KkZm7687w/tumblr_l61uumanae1qc3ucmo1_1280.jpg[/img][/left]

[b]Personality:[/b] Tim isn’t afraid to make with the snappy patter when he’s nervous.  He’s focused and fully engaged with training and the mastering of his power but he is clearly not dealing with what he had gone through in the past and simply burying it within.  Tim doesn’t like talking about his past.  He feels as though he was naieve and the guilt over feeling responsible for his wife’s death makes him quick to deflect personal questions sent his way.  Tim also errs on the side of paranoia.  He is ever-vigilant for S.T.A.R. Labs or whatever "shadow corporation" it was that trained him and gave him his abilities.  While he does indeed want to avenge his wife he is also somewhat paralyzed by the fact that whoever it was that trained him is significantly more powerful and connected than he is.

[b]Powers:[/b]

[glow=green,2,300]Teleportation[/glow] – Tim can move himself and up to two hundred additional pounds up to 100 meters in any direction he has line of sight to.  He needs roughly 1 second between teleportation attempts to “recharge” but straining to greater distances beyond 100 meters or carrying more than just himself along with him can result in greater exhaustion and leave him drained for an extended period. Each instance of teleportation does tire him.  He can currently “rapid-fire” teleport fifteen times over a stretch of fifteen to twenty seconds and that will leaving him breathing heavily and in need of a rest for two to three minutes.  Newton’s First Law of Motion still governs Tim and his power.  If he is running and leaps into the air, only to the teleport; upon appearing again he will maintain that momentum.  If Tim is falling, he can indeed teleport out of that fall but depending on how far he has fallen; he will maintain that momentum and downward force upon reappearing elsewhere.  Psychologically Tim still relies from time to time on a physical stimulus for his teleportation.  Example:  At times; when under stress if Tim was on a rooftop of a building and needed to teleport to another rooftop; he would need to sprint towards the edge and jump…only to then reappear on the other rooftop.  This physical stimulus is NOT needed and is indeed something he must overcome.  After a teleport and upon reappearing there is a minor shockwave that accompanies this reappearance.  Not a shockwave of a physical nature but more; a wave of silence that radiates out from him; silencing all noise for a second as it moves outward from him until it dissipates at a 15 meter radius from Tim.

[glow=green,2,300]Remote Relocation[/glow] – With focus and under the right circumstances; Tim can use a remote video feed to act as guidance for his teleportation.  This can allow him to teleport far…far beyond what his normal range currently is.

[glow=green,2,300]Firearm Training[/glow] – Tim is proficient with side-arms and rifles of the automatic and semi-automatic variety.  To call himself a crack shot would be quite generous.  He is capable but still has a good deal of expertise to acquire.  He is growing more competent at combining his teleportation whilst firing his sidearms.

[glow=green,2,300]Hand to Hand Combat Training[/glow] – Tim has spent five years learning jiu jitsu as well as krav maga.  Much as his skill with firearms; he is a capable combatant but certainly not an expert and has a good deal to learn.  He is growing more competent at combining his teleportation whilst using hand to hand attacks.

[b]Weapons:[/b] Tim wields a pair of experimental .45 calibre ceramic pistols that will accept a number of modified rounds.  Upon fleeing S.T.A.R. Labs he has had to resort to simply regular ammunition but he is hoping to come up with a way to expand his arsenal.

[b]Equipment:[/b] Tim’s costume was developed by S.T.A.R. Labs and acts as a form of body armor and is effective against knifes and small calibre ammunition.

Tim has a pair of goggles that allow him to see in infrared and low light conditions.

[b]Weakness:[/b] As a result of the experimentation done on Tim he needs to consume double the normal human average of fluids everyday; lest he begin to dehydrate and grow ill.  Once every five days he needs to spend twelve hours breathing in nothing other than pure helium.  Failing to do this causes a painful deterioration in Tim over time and after having missed his treatment for three days; he will slip into a coma and experience complete system failure a day or so after.

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