Guardsman MkIV
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
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| Guardsman MkIV | |
| Guardsman MkIV | |
| Player: @pnakotus | |
| Origin: | Technology |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Blaster |
| Security Level: | 29 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Peter Benton |
| Known Aliases: | Iron Guardsman |
| Species: | Human |
| Age: | 30 |
| Height: | Unrevealed |
| Weight: | Unrevealed |
| Eye Color: | Blue |
| Hair Color: | Brown |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | USA |
| Occupation: | Linesman/Technician |
| Place of Birth: | Paragon City |
| Base of Operations: | Paragon University, Engineering Dept. |
| Marital Status: | Married |
| Known Relatives: | Jan Benton, Alec Benton |
| Known Powers | |
| Powered armour providing enhanced strength, repulsor blasts and flight. | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Variety of technical skills. | |
| Equipment | |
| Guardsman Armour. | |
| ' | |
An armoured hero using a mixture of 50 year old Spartan technology and bootleg rikti gear to fight Crey and other scientific/corporate villains. Now retired.
Contents |
Affiliations
- Jan Benton
Peter was married to Director Benton. See below for details.
- Axiom Man
Peter's brother Alec is better known as Axiom Man; he took up the torch when Peter retired.
Personality
Friendly, sarcastic, a bit of a wiseass, in contrast to his very earnest brother.
Powers
All of Guardsman's powers derive from the armour he wears.
Repulsors
His repulsor gauntlets can project concussive beams of force over long distances.
Super-Strength
Most versions of the armour provide enhanced strength to the wearer.
Flight
Carefully tuned rocket engines in the boots (and supplemental engines in the gauntlet housings) allow the armour to fly.
Abilities
Peter Benton is a skilled hands-on technician. He lacks theoretical knowledge, however, and is unable to maintain the armour without help.
Weaknesses and Limitations
His armour is based on designs stolen from Andrew Spartan's Iron Guard project and the Rikti. Spartan, at least, has a back door allowing him to disable the Guardsman armour remotely.
Equipment
The Guardsman armour, a suit of flight-capable, fully enclosed powered armour with a full suite of weapons and computer systems.
Guardsman Armour MkI
A simple derivative of the Iron Guard armour from the 50s. A cheap Rikti-tech power core replaces the nuclear power plant of the original. Repulsor gauntlets, slow turbojet-powered flight, and the ability to release damaging electrical charges through the skin of the armour.
Guardsman Armour MkII
This much more advanced model uses forcefields extensively. It is far more durable than the original as a result, but the power drain of the shield systems made the weapons systems comparatively feeble.
Guardsman Armour MkIII
The MkIII had no ranged capability at all. It was both strong and the most durable version of all, incorporating heavy armour and forcefields to maximise protection.
Guardsman Armour MkIV
With the final version the emphasis was shifted from defense to offense, combining the melee capacity of the MkIII with the repulsor output of the MkI, and incorporating a host of features for the distribution and optimal usage of power. This version is the most powerful of all, having the biggest powerplant, the fastest computers, and the most devastating weapons systems, as well as the ability to absorb energy from incoming attacks to further power the weapons systems. It is however quite delicate and prone to overloading compared to the earlier versions.
Character History
Peter Benton led a modest but contented existence, living in a small Kings Row apartment with his wife Jan, working as a linesman for the Paragon Power company. Jan, a promising young lab assistant at a biotech company, got her big break when she applied for a job at Crey Industries. It was then that their quite domestic existence began to turn into a nightmare.
At first there were no problems beyond the demanding hours of Jan's dream job. One day, however, she didn't return home. When Peter called the office they claimed never to have heard of her. She had never worked there.
The police refused to help. Conducting his own investigation, Peter soon found out why. Two weeks later he saw Jan walking into a Crey office in Steel Canyon. When he accosted her, she acted as if she'd never seen him before in her life. She called security, and he was threatened and ejected from the building.
Returning to his empty apartment to lick his wounds, he went onto the internet, determined to find a way to undo whatever Crey had done to his wife. He didn't find it, but he found the means to ensure that they'd never be able to intimidate him again: A pirate copy of the plans for the Iron Guard Armour.
He took the plans to the engineering club at Paragon University, imploring the students to add their technical skill to his own limited knowledge. They rose to the challenge and with their help he was able to incorporate bootleg rikti technology into the 50 year-old designs. Gradually, over the course of four different models of the suit, turning the venerable armour into a powerhouse of destructive energy.
In his crusade against Crey he crashed with Dr Vahzilok and the Clockwork King. Vahzilok learned the true purpose of his vendetta, and laughed maniacally as though at some private, twisted joke.
The punchline came when he at last invaded the Crey laboratory where, according to a tipoff, he could expect to find Jan Benton. Find her he did, standing alongside Andrew Spartan, the inventor of the Iron Guard armour. Activating an anti-theft mechanism he had built into the designs themselves, Spartan caused the Guardsman's armour to collapse, peeling from him like a shed skin, the gloves and boots reduced to crippling dead weights. Helpless, he listened as Jan delivered the punchline to the joke that so amused the diabolical Dr Vahzilok.
Jan Benton had never existed. It was an identity Crey had created to punish one of their senior scientists. By brainwashing her into believing she was a meek young lab assistant sharing a tiny Kings Row apartment with her blue-collar husband, they sought to show her what her life could have been like without the opportunities they offered.
It worked. The thought of a life of quiet domestic intimacy, TV dinners and coming home after a hard day's work to cuddle up on the couch was repulsive to the driven and diabolical scientist who had been trapped within Jan Benton. She told Peter as much, and directed Spartan to kill him, saying he'd probably be doing Peter a favour.
At the last moment Paradox Girl appeared out of nowhere and spirited Benton away, babbling that she'd just got back from his wedding and if he died he'd be late for it.
The Guardsman retired; his armour was never rebuilt. He passed the torch to his brother Alec, who at that time was working on adapting his scientific Axiom suit into something more suitable for combat. The Mk IV Guardsman weapons systems were the perfect complement to the Axiom suit's more subtle capabilities.
A year later, with his divorce finalised, Peter married a girl from the engineering club. She'd worked the hardest on his armour, always urging him not to give up - even though deep inside all she wanted was for him to give up, and stay with her. Axiom Man & Paradox Girl attended the wedding, but PG had to leave when she remembered an urgent appointment during the reception.
