Most children are born from parents small and screaming into the world. This was not so for Collation XII. This is the tale as I have learned it from the subject himself.
Darkness consumed everything, and there was my first smell. It was burning circuits, and the odor has never left me since I first caught it. The world around was burned and blackened, and as my eyes adjusted, I saw the devastation that had been the result of my birth. I was not horrified, scared, happy, or any of the other emotions I have learned about as all children do in time, instead I was merely fascinated. I had vague images from my "parents", they had been fighting over something, in the process they had destroyed each other and created me. How the darkness that was controlled by one parent managed to meld with the hellish metal that made up my other parent, I will never know, but it did.
I felt a wind stir against my metallic skin, and I heard the faint sounds of something coming, growing louder as it close in upon me. I was quickly surrounded by several people in clothing that at the time was unknown to me "Halt police!" were the first things they said to me before they raised weapons, I understood the words, but not the context, and I knew the weapons could hurt me, I was frightened. I don't know what happened, but a darkness seeped out of my outstretched hands, when the darkness touched him, he slumped forward a little. I felt the darkness enter me again, making me stronger. They opened fire upon me, screaming something I didn't hear over the sounds of their firearms discharging in me. Each hit hurt so badly, I reached out again, and the blackness came forth once more, but the strength it gave me back was not yet strong enough to overcome their relentless assault. As I screamed for help and covered my newly opened eyes with my arms, I heard a crunching sound, as if somethings large and metallic had slammed into the pavement. I was hit once more and dropped to the ground unconscious.
I awoke in a cell, at a place everyone around me called "The Zig", and since at that time I had only really been alive and conscious for about twenty minutes, the place terrified me. The people looked at me oddly, I didn't know why then, but now, as young as I was, I already was an adult physically. It wasn't long before someone came to talk to me, I was told they were my attorney, and that I was being charged with attempted murder, assault on a police officer, obstructing an investigation, destruction of public property, reckless endangerment, and discharging a power in an unlawful manner. I didn't understand any of it, and my lawyer took my innocent questions and straightforward answers as me being evasive with him. I didn't know what they wanted from me, and when they asked questions, I answered truthfully, that ended with me being taken to court, and left in The Zig.
I was really starting to hate these people, they had threatened me, and when I had defended myself, I was tossed in a small cell with a truly hardened criminal.
My first months of life were of being surrounded by people who I was considered one of by the justice system, and who hated me because I was not one of them at all, I was something different. They tried to attack me themselves, but the darkness came again, a bit stronger each time, until they left me alone mostly. Then something new happened, Lord Recluse sent out some teams to free what he calls "Destined Ones", and I was in the cells with them. They asked few questions of me, freed me from my cell, and gave me a purpose for a short time. Then they took me to the Rogue Isles and left me in the care of Kalinda. I hate that woman, and though she says I am one of the few she calls friend, I would kill her if she were not so well protected. She used me for her own gain, sent me out without regard to what I wanted. I do not forget that, and cannot. I am myself, the one gift my parents had given me was self-awareness, and everyone kept trying to take it from me. I did what I was told for a time, until I found a way off of Mercy Island.
I had heard of the group my dad had joined, Knight's of Heaven, a super group that was dedicated to balancing out the evil and goodness of this world, so that neither would become all encompassing, and thereby destroy creation. I went to them for aid since they had once been friends and colleagues of my dad, and Tidis, the leader of KoH took me in.
For weeks I was unable to master the growing power within me, it was spiraling out of control and taking my sanity with it. Someone else in KoH helped me then, Delta 24, the last one I would have thought to do such. He is considered a mastermind, his troops of choice are mercenaries that he hires himself, arms, and supports in combat with his own innate darkness powers.