Difference between revisions of "The Flea"
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|Residence= Millennium City | |Residence= Millennium City | ||
|Headquarters= Westside | |Headquarters= Westside | ||
− | |Occupation= | + | |Occupation= Paparazzo for Shameless! Magazine |
|Legal= Vigilante | |Legal= Vigilante | ||
|Marital= Single | |Marital= Single |
Revision as of 00:17, 16 September 2014
There are monoliths of human aptitude who boldly don battle gear and bravely soldier forth in the name of justice and peace. There are geniuses who harness the unlimited potential of technology to bolster and protect their fellow man from any who would threaten to harm them. There are the morally upstanding few who, infused with tremendous power, stand tall above the innocent masses and against the many varied forces of evil. Then there's Dewey Donovan.
Contents
Biography
Dewey Donovan was born on the 2nd April 1987 in Millennium City, the second child of Kenneth and Tracy Donovan and the happily anticipated new addition to the Donovan family. His father, the successful founder and owner of a local construction company, and his mother, a beloved veterinarian with her own bustling clinic, had the means and the inclination to provide both their children with a loving, attentive home environment in which they would want for nothing and his older sister, Jolene, was all too thrilled to have a little brother to nurture and play with. For all intents and purposes, Dewey was born into a good family in a good neighbourhood, free of any oppressive hardships and economic obstacles.
From a very early age, however, Dewey something of a problem child. Frightened and intimidated by the notion of playing with other children, he would typically eschew outdoor activities in favour of playing by himself or with his sister indoors. Though his mother, a textbook enabler, was all too willing to let her darling child have his eccentricities, Dewey's father stood firmly by more traditional beliefs. Seeing his son's unwillingness to engage with other children and his preference for playing 'girly' games with his sister as a problem, Kenneth took on a sterner role in bringing him up, forcing him to engage in outdoor 'father and son' activities in order to drag out his more masculine side.
Despite his father's efforts, Dewey firmly resisted his constant attempts at male bonding, estranging their relationship even further. By the time Dewey was ten, a certain social barrier had been erected between himself and Kenneth. The former saw his father's approach to parenting as overbearing and self-centred and, try as he might, the latter seemed incapable of understanding just why his traditionalist methods were being rejected. As Dewey and Kenneth's relationship worsened, so too did the relationship between Kenneth and Tracy. Tracy believed that Kenneth's machismo only served to alienate their son and made no effort to hide her views from her husband. All the while, Dewey watched the foundations of their marriage crumbled and realised, for the first time in his life, that he didn't really care that much about other people.
At school, Dewey coasted by with mediocre grades, mediocre friends and absolutely zero effort put forward on his part. Through parent/teacher conferences about his squandered potential and carrot and stick approaches from his mother and father respectively, he maintained the bare minimum standard of excellence needed to slide through life as lazily as possible and spent his free time either playing video games, watching TV or just plain doing nothing.
For a while, Dewey's childhood was a blur of apathy lessened only by the various forms of escapism he surrounded himself with. Then he hit puberty. Then he got a new English teacher with a firmly-rounded bottom and ample breasts and realised that the only thing that only one thing truly had any importance in life -- hot, naked women. His early teen years were filled with stolen or borrowed copies of Playboy, carefully planned strategies to get as much of an eyeful of his female classmates' unmentionables as possible and, on more than one occasion, inanimate objects which vaguely resembled parts of the female body. From that day forward, Dewey Donovan became a shameless pervert, and would only get worse with age.
By the age of fourteen, Dewey made a regular habit of living out his voyeuristic fantasies by peeping on practically any woman who so much as walked through his line of vision. Lacking the confidence or willpower to actually bother asking the majority of them out and often getting cruelly shot down whenever he did, he instead settled for climbing into trees to get a look into bedrooms and sneaking into the girls' locker room. Much to his frustration, however, his memories of such explicit sights never lasted long enough. That's when he received word of the photography club.
Quickly signing up to be a member of the photography club, used his access of professional school photography equipment and photo development facilities to amass a collection of candid photos showing female students and teachers in a number of compromising positions. Before long, he had entire books full of perverted photos stashed away from prying eyes and seemed to be showing no signs of stopping when his fellow photography club members stumbled upon his secret stash. Desperate to stay out of trouble and seizing the opportunity that a club comprised solely of boys provided him, Dewey came up with a solution -- in exchange for their silence, he would share his photos with his fellow photographers and teach them how to snap similar photos of their own. His fellow club members agreed and, before long, the photography club became solely devoted to shameless voyeurism. From this, another idea popped into Dewey's head.
Starting up their racket with hushed whispers and secret notes, Dewey and the rest of the photography club began selling lewd photographs of as many female members of the school as they could manage to anyone willing to scrounge together their allowance and lunch money to buy them. With the entire club acting as a network of perverts trained in the slimy act by Dewey himself, it wasn't long before money came pouring in from every which way -- and Dewey was the one who ended up pocketing most of it.
Predictably, though, everything came crashing down in a spectacular fashion. A dropped photo in the school hallway gave birth to a full-scale investigation of what turned out to be the biggest scandal in school history. In a matter of weeks, the local news was abuzz about the apparent 'pornographic sex cult' and all roads led directly to an unsuspecting Dewey. When all was said and done, the photography club was forcefully disbanded, the culprits were suspended until further notice and every woman even tangentially involved with Dewey's high school hated his guts.
The fallout from Dewey's actions had a staunchly negative effect on the Donovans. Though his mother was all too willing to forgive her son for his 'mistake' and his sister preferred to pretend it never happened, Dewey's father refused to let the matter go, seeing the whole incident as further proof that his son needed to be brought up properly. The weeks following the scandal were filled with Kenneth barking orders and reprimands at Dewey every chance he got. Dewey, of course, completely disregarded everything his father said, actively going out of his way to disobey him and fly in his face. The result of his constant provocation came when Kenneth suffered a sudden aneurysm mid-rant, dying en-route to the hospital. Though Tracy and Jolene were devastated by the loss, Dewey, again, was more concerned with his own well-being.
After narrowly graduating high school as a complete social pariah, Dewey begged his mother for a loan, stole what he could from his sister's purse and moved out of his family's home to branch out on his own. As far as he was concerned, his family had only ever held him back from doing whatever he wanted and, as such, firmly fell into the category of people he wanted to spend as little time with as possible. Without much in the way of academic achievement to get him through life, however, he was forced to scrounge the bottom of the barrel for employment. Eventually, his search for work bore fruit and he was offered a position as a janitor for Steel Industries' Millennium City R&D Lab.
As a janitor, Dewey was able to watch in on some of Steel Industries' greatest breakthroughs in the fields of science and technology. From weapons development to explorations into controlled mutations, he was privy to sights that would leave most academics in awe. Of course, he had no interest in any of that. The one thing that did consistently draw his attention was the head scientist of mutation research, Dr. Veronica Hale.
Over the next few years, Dewey's obsession with Dr. Hale festered and grew. Though he still frequented skeevy pornography and downloaded 'nude leaks' of Witchcraft from the internet, Dr. Hale remained his primary fixation. In Dewey's eyes, she was the perfect woman: attractive, busty, leggy and wealthy. Therefore, it only made sense that he watched her work from a distance while carrying out his janitorial duties, sniffed the chair at her desk whenever she wasn't in it and frequently 'bumped into her' while working.
Dr. Hale was less than thrilled about her abhorrent admirer, however -- especially considering the staggering breakthroughs her research into controlled genetic mutation was about to give birth to. As if that wasn't enough, she was already in a committed relationship with fellow mutations scientist Dr. Norman Kind, and had no intention of leaving the handsome genius for the creepy janitor. Pulling Dewey aside one day, she bluntly told him that -- as a thoroughly repulsive human being -- he didn't have a chance with her. Dewey took her honesty a little hard.
A twenty-three year old man without much else to give his life any meaning, Dewey decided that he wasn't going to lay his obsession with Dr. Hale to rest without securing a 'souvenir' to 'remember' her by. With his mind made up, Dewey swapped to a night shift and waited for most of the lab's personnel to leave or sequester themselves within their on-site rooms for the night. Once he was sure the coast was clear, he sneaked his way into Dr. Hale's on-site room to steal her panties among other items.
Securing some used lipstick and a bottle of what appeared to be perfume, Dewey next set his sights on the grand prize: Dr. Hale's panties. As he rummaged through her clothes hamper for a freshly worn pair, however, he heard the sounds of someone else entering Dr. Hale's room behind him. Quickly straightening the place up, he hid himself under her bed and prayed the other person wouldn't see him. To his surprise, however, the other person wasn't Dr. Hale -- it was Dr. Kind.
To his further surprise, Dr. Kind promptly began ransacking Dr. Hale's room in search of something. From his hidden position beneath the bed, Dewey gained a glimpse of the handgun in the doctor's grasp and, naturally, began to panic. Then a thought occurred to him. Dr. Kind was hardly a trained killer or a ninja assassin, he was just some scrawny nerd with a handgun and, whatever it was he was looking for, Dewey was certain he was up to no good. Deciding that the best way to win Dr. Hale's affection would be to catch her duplicitous boyfriend red-handed, Dewey waited for Dr. Kind to storm out of the room in search of whatever it was he wanted and followed him.
Dr. Kind arrived in the mutations lab and began searching for his prize, unaware that Dewey was following him from a distance. While Dr. Kind busied himself with his frantic search, Dewey -- armed with a scientific microscope -- bludgeoned him over the head. Disoriented, but not out of the fight, Dr. Kind fought back against the would-be hero and, after a short scrap, knocked himself unconscious when he slipped on a wet patch of the floor left by Dewey's haphazard cleaning.
After laying a few more good blows on the unconscious Dr. Kind to ensure he looked tougher and stashing the items he stole from Dr. Hale's room in his car for safe keeping, Dewey called the authorities and regaled them with stories of his own courage and selfishness. Concluding that Dewey acted purely in self-defense, the police dismissed him and took Dr. Kind away. Neither Dewey or the authorities were aware of just what it was the rogue Dr. Kind had been searching for, however...
The following morning, after sleeping off the injuries he sustained in his fight with Dr. Kind, Dewey indulged in his stolen loot. Though the panties and lipstick were the star items of his haul, the bottled perfume puzzled him. Despite having a nozzle for spraying its contents, the bottle had no logo, marking or indication of just what the orange liquid inside of it actually smelled like. Seeking to satisfy his curiosity, Dewey sprayed a bit of the perfume on his wrist and took a whiff. Finding the smell intoxicating, he doused himself in as much of the perfume as possible to compensate for his broken shower and set off for work, hoping to reap the rewards of his night of spontaneous heroism.
Picking at the flea bites sustained from his sleazy mattress, Dewey arrived at the R&D Lab to find the police investigation still ongoing. Before he could question it, he was confronted by a hysterical Dr. Hale. The source of her frustration, as it turned out, was the missing bottle she left in her room prior to Dewey's encounter with Dr. Kind and, despite having thoroughly interrogated the doctor, the authorities had only managed to discover that he was a corporate spy seeking to acquire Steel Industries' mutations research for a competitor. Not wanting to get in trouble for his actions, Dewey lied that he had no idea about the stolen bottle and assured Dr. Hale that he would do his best to help her locate it.
Though he remained calm on the surface, Dewey flew into a panic on the inside. Now suspecting that the 'perfume' wasn't perfume at all, he sought to conduct an investigation of his own to figure out just what it was he had covered himself in. Using the ongoing police occupation of the facility as cover, he searched through Dr. Hale's research notes until he was eventually caught by Hale herself. Having seen through Dewey's lie, she demanded the truth from him. Backed against the wall with no other options, Dewey gave her just that, informing her that Dr. Kind sprayed him with some sort of perfume during their fight, but that it promptly shattered when he dropped it.
Despite some reservations, Dr. Hale believed Dewey's story and promised to tell him what the serum did as long as he came to her lab for some tests. Dewey agreed, but also requested that Dr. Hale keep what happened a secret from her superiors and the police. With their mutual agreement fleshed out, the two holed up inside Dr. Hale's private lab. Without the risk of their conversation being eavesdropped on, Dr. Hale explained to Dewey that the 'perfume' he had been sprayed with was actually a prototype Genome Modification Super Serum. Originally designed by Dr. Hale to immunise its subjects from disease and eliminate various genetic defects and predispositions, Steel Industries saw the military applications of a slightly tweaked version of the base serum and ordered Dr. Hale to modify the serum to further mutate DNA in a more radical manner. In theory, anyone who ingested or applied enough of the serum to themselves would be extremely strong and durable, able to regenerate from their injuries and capable of tremendous feats of physical prowess. To Dewey, this all meant one thing -- fame, fortune and beautiful women.
With her explanation aside, Dr. Hale proceeded to analyse Dewey from every conceivable angle. She drew blood samples, tissue samples, urine samples and more to gain a thorough understanding of the effects the serum was having on Dewey's body. Additionally, she also had him run through a range of physical tests to further observe the changes to his physiology. After an entire day on non-stop analysis, however, Dr. Hale was puzzled to find that the serum had seemingly had no effect on Dewey at all.
Concluding that the serum must have been a dud, Dr. Hale nevertheless chose to detain Dewey in an observation chamber for the night, much to his chagrin. While the doctor busied herself with trying to figure out exactly why the serum worked, however, a flea hopped under her microscope. Before she could question its presence, the door to the R&D facility was blown open. Rushing to a nearby security station, Dr. Hale saw a squad of heavily armed mercenaries gunning down security personnel and police officers on their way to her lab, seemingly looking to take the serum Dr. Kind had failed to secure through force.
Activating the lab's security measures, Dr Hale. hurried to erase all data on her serum from the facility's database in the hopes that it would force the mercenaries to take her alive. Meanwhile, trapped within his observation chamber, Dewey's body began to shoot with intense, searing pain. Muscles formed and bulged within his form and a sudden sense of hyperactivity disoriented him. Unbeknownst to himself or Dr. Hale, the serum he had applied to his skin was only just beginning to work its magic.
Deleting the very last file detailing the creation of the serum just as the mercenaries kicked down the door to her lab, Dr. Hale began to barter for her life, promising to give their employer another prototype if they let her live and paid her more than Steel Industries for it. Before they could consider her offer, however, Dewey -- imbued with strength from the serum -- lunged at the attacking mercenaries and fought them almost effortlessly, sticking to walls, draining their energy with his touch and seemingly preempting their. Eventually, the men lay broken at his feet.
Surprised by what had just transpired before her eyes, Dr. Hale studied Dewey a second time and surmised that the Genome Modification Super Serum must have reacted unexpectedly with the fleas inhabiting Dewey's hair and skin and allowed their genetic material to fuse with that of his own. The result was a delayed reaction and the development of a number of flea-like traits in Dewey. In addition to the enhanced strength, durability and other physical abilities which were a natural effect of the serum, Dewey had also developed an enhanced sense of smell and leg strength, the power to adhere to surfaces, the ability to gradually drain energy through his touch and an extrasensory ability to detect imminent danger. Needless to say, Dewey was ecstatic.
Of course, Dr. Hale was also overjoyed by the end result of the serum, for her own reasons. Far from the angel Dewey had built her up to be in his own imagination, Dr. Hale saw Dewey's powers and obsession with her as an opportunity to get rich and famous by stealing projects from other companies and outing them as her own. All she needed to do to accomplish that goal was to convince a reluctant Dewey to act on her behalf. A kiss and a promise of more to come were enough to buy his unflinching loyalty.
The next day, Dr Hale gave Dewey his first mission: breaking into the nearby R&D lab belonging to Monolith Dynamics and stealing the most interesting prototype he could find. With all the subtlety of a wrecking ball, he did just that. Bursting through the doors of Monolith's lab in a black bodysuit, he made short work of security and grabbed the very first prototype he could find -- a hi-tech belt labelled the Shrinkomatic 5000. Stopping to take a few peeks at some of the unconscious female guards along the way, he returned to Dr. Hale with his prize in hand. Having seen his display of force on the local news, Dr. Hale berated Dewey for jeopardising her and threatened to expose him. Angered by her sudden threat of betrayal, Dewey used his strength to force her against a wall and threatened to kill her if she did so. In the heat of the moment, however, Dr. Hale --seemingly aroused by the violence and intensity of it all -- kissed him and the two spent the night together.
Waking up the next day full of regret from having slept with Dewey, Dr. Hale decided to pin the blame of everything that happened solely on him and proceeded to call the police. As she began to dial the number, however, the door to her apartment was kicked down and a pack of mercenaries led by the reflection manipulating member of All-Star's rogues gallery, the Mirror, entered the apartment. Apparently, through sheer bad luck, Dewey had stolen a prototype from the very crooked company that had been hiring mercenaries and spies to steal work from its competitors and, as he stooped down to peek at one of the female guards, she placed a tracking device on his bodysuit. As he held Dr. Hale at gunpoint, the Mirror demanded that she call her accomplice and return the Shrinkomatic 5000 to them. All the while, Dewey watched from the bedroom.
Donning his black bodysuit as hurriedly as he could, Dewey grabbed his bag and fled out the window, wanting nothing to do with any of what was going on around him.
After returning home, however, Dewey quickly realised that the Shrinkomatic 5000 was still in his bag. Deciding to make the best of a sticky situation, he donned the belt to see what it could do. With a twist of the buckle, Dewey shrank down to the size of an insect and immediately found himself being accosted by the various parasites inhabiting the den of squalor he called home. Calling out for help, he was amazed to find that a swarm of fleas living in his carpet responded to his pleas, overpowering the other insects through sheer numbers and stopping the moment he asked them to. Using his belt to return to his normal size, Dewey concluded that he was going to become a very wealthy man very quickly.
With Dr. Hale behind him and a promising future up ahead, Dewey quit his job as a janitor at Steel Industries and fashioned his black bodysuit into a cheap, flimsy costume. From that day forward, he became the Flea -- a purveyor of justice and a symbol of hope for anyone willing to pay him enough.
Taking to the streets of Westside at night as the Flea, Dewey leaped from rooftop to rooftop, seeking out crimes to stop. However, most of the ones he stumbled upon were either already being stopped by another vigilante or completely devoid of damsels-in-distress who would be willing to pay him cash or 'otherwise' for his services. On occasions where super criminals were involved, Dewey opted to seek out something a little less difficult to deal with. After about a month of doing nothing but hanging out on rooftops waiting for something criminal to happen, Dewey had his first lucky break in the form of a routine car-jacking of an attractive young woman. Leaping into action, Dewey promptly got caught in a clothesline, landing in a nearby dumpster. As he struggled to get out, another insect themed hero arrived on scene to lend a hand. Swooping in from above, the Battling Bug expertly defeated the mugger and saved his would-be victim.
Pulling Dewey free of his dumpster, the Battling Bug offered to be his mentor so he could teach him how to be a more competent hero. Though reluctant to have to march to the beat of someone else's drum, Dewey agreed that it would be in his best interests to accept his generous offer. With the Battling Bug at his side, Dewey began to hone his powers and talents, learning to maneuver, fight and utilises his powers with maximum efficiency. After three months of training under the Battling Bug, Dewey finally knew enough about combat and his own powers to survive out on the streets.
During a routine patrol with Battling Bug, Dewey witnessed the down on his luck super criminal and frequent enemy of All-Star, Gazerbeam, stealthily using his lasers to cut his way into an ATM and steal the money within. Seeing this as an opportunity to put his newly developed talent into action, Dewey engaged Gazerbeam against Battling Bug's orders. Preferring to showboat and spout one-liners rather than take Gazerbeam out before he caused too much collateral damage, Dewey was struck by one of the villain's optic blasts and left dazed. As he struggled to recover, Gazerbeam concentrated a blast to blow right through him.
Rushing to save his protege, the Battling Bug pushed him out of the way. The concentrated blast drilled straight through the hero's lungs, fatally wounding him. Angered, Dewey savagely beat Gazerbeam into unconsciousness and ran to his fading mentor's side. With his last breath, the Battling Bug revealed his identity as former professional boxer Marcus Slate and asked Dewey to track down his estranged daughter so she would know what had happened to him. Seeking to comfort the dying man, Dewey made his promise. The moment he passed, however, he noticed the money pouring out from the damaged ATM. Looking to pay that month's rent, he hurriedly stuffed as much as he could into his costume. When he realised it wouldn't fit, however, he donned the deceased Battling Bug's costume -- which had ample pouches -- and used it to haul the money back to his apartment.
Using what was left of the money he stole to support his hero for hire business, Dewey altered the Battling Bug's stolen costume so it would better fit him and, when he couldn't decide on an emblem which looked good, embroidered an F on its front. He also started a website dedicated to acting as a blog and point of contact for his future heroism. It was his hope that people would contact him via the website with requests for help after he reached a certain level of popularity. With powers, training, a good costume and a little money to get him by, Dewey fully committed himself to being the Flea. However, in his haste to take care of his own needs, informing Battling Bug's daughter of her father's death completely slipped his mind...
Despite his boundless enthusiasm towards being paid to do what every other hero did for free, Dewey found that his website barely had any hits, let alone hits from people willing to pay him for his services. Desperate for cash, he took to rescuing mugging victims and then humbly requesting a cut of the money they would've had stolen anyway along with other unscrupulous acts of warped heroism. It was during one of these daring nights of stopping petty thieves and then robbing them that he stumbled upon a want ad for the perfect job in a discarded newspaper -- being a paparazzo for the infamous tabloid newspaper 'Shameless!'
Powers That I Can Do
Stuff I Have
Weaknesses I do not have because I'm a man
Did somebody say "Sexy Nude Pictures"?
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