The length is intimidating at first glance, but wow, what a page-turner! (Proverbially speaking!)
A great read, and I love this character again. It must be great fun to play him in game, knowing the whole process by which he got his powers. And his cranky personality.
Good show!
Thanks 
Next time I say I'm longwinded, remember that I'm not exaggerating
And, to tell you the truth, he is a lot more fun now that I have him figured out. The more work and thought I put into a character, the more complete and real they feel to me. Oftentimes I've started out with but a vague idea and some slap-bang costume that kind of looked good, only to abandon the character because he had no personality to draw me in. And then as time moves on and I return to him, I start adding in bits and pieces of story and building a personality. That actually makes a character that's worty of being in a story, and that just makes me want to play him more.
Actually, I've developed a habbit of re-writing the game's mission briefings and encounters in my head as I play through them. That way the stories are better (to me) and just the way I like them, as well
And, yes, Majik IS cranky. He's arrogant and ego-centric, which is what brings him to villainy. Of course, the circumstances are at fault, but it's how he responds to them that seals his fate in the end.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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My name is Garett Brandon, Prof. Dr. of Applied Physics and expert in the field of electricity and electro-magnicity. It has been so long since I took on the mantle of Mek Majik that I don't remember much of my life befoe my discovery. I've even began forgetting my name because no-one ever uses it. The name of Mek Majik was never my choice - it was the idea of Ezikiel Bane, my benefactor. I hate that man for his arrogance, but beggards cannot be choosers. He provides the money and equipement I reqiore to perpetuate my research, and that is all I have left in the world.
But that is all I need, as well. Once my research is complete, once I have the Ultimate Power, everything will go my way. Lord Bane believes I am working for him and that he will possess it once it is done. He can believe whatever he wishes. Our agreement was that I will continue my research at his expense. We made no arrangements of who will retain ownership of it once it is done. Though I fear he may already have planned ahead. Too often now he pulls me away from my work to assist him in his own projects, and I am unable to refuse. Is he purpusefully sabotaging my efforts? Why would he? With that man, I can never be sure if there isn't something happening behind my back, just waiting for the right moment to hurt me. I've no choice but to continue working. I will answer all his questions as briefly as possible and inform him of my progress as little as I can afford. I can only hope that I can reach breakthrough before he expects it.
My work has not always been this difficult or stressful, however. Once, so long ago, I was a respected scientist in Paragon City. I was working with D.A.T.A. on the Magic Shield project. The aim of our work was to produce some technological means for disrupting magical energies, to be used by Paragon City's heroes and armed forces in their fight against groups like the Circle of Thorns, Banished Pantheon or Carnival of Shadows. Since such groups rely solely on magic, any protection against it would go a long way in the fight against them.
I was working in conjunction with a few collegues, but as usual they were all preoccupied with running the same tests over and over again and compiling stathistical data for Lord knows what purpuse. They never acheived any meaningful progress that way, but I don't think they could see far enough past their limitations to actually use some imagination. As usual, I was working mostly alone, but sharing credit for my work with my collegues. It used to bug me once, long ago, but I had grown used to it over time.
Instead of following in the tunnel vision of my peers, I chose to start off something that had already been worked with. Some time ago I had conducted some unrelated research on the Clockwork King's little wind-up toys and found quite by accident that electricity, or more percisely electro-magnicity can, to some small degree, interfere with the application of magic. Then I concluded that this is the reason the Clockwork had been so successful in their fights against the Circle of Thorns enclaves they shared territory with. I went off to see if I could expand on that.
In my free time, I took to practicing magic. Nothing complicated, of course, just the simple things - setting fire to combustable materials at a distance, imparting kinetic energy to stationary objects, even bending and manifesting light. It wasn't part of my official research, but I did this so that I could gain some basic understanding of magic which I hoped would assist me in my work, as well as to have controlled samples on which to test my work.
However, my foray into the world of magic intrigued me. I quickly mastered the basic spells I had tried, so I attempted to move on to more complicated ones. That was a complete failure. It was so... Chaotic. All spells, incantations and ceremonies were written and described seperately, and as such I was expected to remember them seperately. No-one appeared to have ever tried to make any sense of it, or looked for any patterns in the what these rites were performed. That was especially curious, since there were obvious and glaring correlations between the "igredients" that went into casting the spells that I had learned.
I attempted to break the spells into their components and put them under a uniform framework, and I quickly discovered why no order existed in magic - what appeared similar at first turned out to have profoundly different effects on the different spells. To the untrained eye, that would look like utter chaos, but what I saw was simply an incredibly complicated system.
Unfortunately, it was too complicated for me to understand, so I returned to me studies of electricity. But then I noticed a curious thing. Through a series of failed experiments, I discovered that electro-magnicity could, under the right circumstances, replaces some of the ingredients of some of the spells I knew. It could, it turned out, straighten out a botched spell and cause it to be cast successfully. Though contrary to the purpuse for which it was designed, that gave me a testing tool.
I experimented with electricity and found I was able to find the exact calibrations that would reproduce some of the missing ingredients. To my surprise, each missing ingredient had a different electro-magnetic signature, but missing two ingredients, for example, had an entirely different siganture. Working further, I was able to transcend ingredients and find the bare electro-magnetic radiation required to create a spell. Experimenting with other types of energy, I discovered that sound and light wave also had an impact if they were of the correct wavelength, intensity and direction.
With my newfound understanding, I was able to disassemble the effects ALL ingredients had on magic spells to a level where I could reproduce the effects themselves without even considering the ingredients. As a thought experiment, I constructed a machine which could project light, sound and electro-magnetic waves into a point, and which I could calibrate perciselt enough to mimmic the effects ingredients had. Taking the calibrations I had pinned down during my research, I was immediately able to reproduce my simpler spells. I fealt confident, so I attempted some more advanced once. While those failed at first, I was quickly able to alter my calibrations, correct my calculations and ultimately "cast" them, too. I attempted higher and higher magic, until M.A.G.I. refused me access to anything more powerful.
While disappointed, I was not discouraged. I had done the impossible - I had created a machine that could cast seemingly any spell that I cared to calibrate it for. But it was a very impractical machine. It was big, bulky, immobile, it consumed astronomical quantities of energy and was horrible inefficient. I had constructed a brilliant experimentational tool, but I wanted something a little more practical. Something that was not confined to a lab and a city's power supply.
I engaged in further tests, measuring energy levels, calibrations, effects, concocting theories and systematically disproving any of them. And then what I would define as the single greatest instance of good fortune in my life gave me a break-through. I noticed that a dial that was not supposed to be wired to anything was giving me readings during my experiments. At first I thought it was a simple malfunction, but upon reading my logs I found it to be far too systhematic to be a simple malfunction. I scoured my logs and continued my experimentation, watching that dial and trying to figure it out. And then it hit me.
The dial was measuring some kind of energy. But not just ANY energy. It was a consistent energy field that fluctuated in relation to my experiments. It has long bugged me how magic could simply create energy out of thin air, and that dial provided the answer. The energy it read dropped when my machine manifested energy and increased when my machine caused energy to disappear. I concluded that I had discovered a new type of energy, something I dubbed "magical energy." Further tests corroborated my concluison. What I had found WAS the energy of magic.
I had found a type of energy, the existence of which had been completely unknown to man kind. No-one even suspect there was such a thing, and I could see why. It existed, but that was about the extent of its interaction with our world. It did not affect and was not affected by physical objects, or by any energy science was aware of. What I had done to affect it, however, was come upon a way transform that magical energy into energies that can affect our world. Kinetic energy, light energy, thermal energy, the possibilities were limitless.
Having discovered that type of energy, I was determined to find a consistent way to measure it. But no device that I had could detect it. Only that one dial picked it up. Even when I removed it from any machine, it still picked it up. I took it apart and started removing bits, and it still worked. That is, until I removed the ornamental fluorescent tint line on the dial hand. I examined the titn and found it to be an exotic type of photo-luminescent plastic. I contacted the manufacturer and was told that its creation process had proven too unstable, so they had pulled it off the market. The did, however, give me all their reseatch notes on how to create it and what properties it had. I was working for D.A.T.A., after all.
The process proved to be even more unstable than I had been led to believe, oftentimes producing carbonated charcoal instead of the plastic I wanted. I did find several ways to consistently reproduce it, and each of them seemed to have a different degree of reaction to magical energy. After much testing, I found a manufacturing process that produced an exceptionally sensitive plastic. That gave me a measurement tool sensitive enough for me to begin examining this magical energy.
The first thing I found out surprised me. Magical energy was not uniformly distributed in space. There were places of high readings and places of low readings, sometimes even in the same room. It also ebbed and flowed, increasing, decreasing moving its areas of concentration. I walked the city and charted these fluctioations. What I came up was an old theory about lay lines - the lines of energy that circle the Earth. I had thought this an old wive's tales that small minds found comforting, but it was actually based in truth. In fact, Paragon City Hall was built right smach on top of the crossing point of no less than three major lay lines, as well as in a bottleneck that had a lot of magical energy flowing through it. No wonder the M.A.G.I. headquarters were built inside - that place had a lot of energy flowing through it. That also apparently assisted me in my research by providing me with a lot of energy from wich to draw conclusive readings.
I then started researching old text books on magic and myths. I came accross a theory that the use of magic in a single place tended to improve the "magical aura" of it. I put this to the test by moving my test machine outdoors and conducting a series of expetrimets. Within a day, the magical energy flow of the immediate area had increased by no less than two points. I also inadvertantly discovered a small Citcle of Thorns outpost, further proving that theory.
Further experimentation with this reactive plastic revealed a curious side effect - as well as being affected by magical energy and measuring it, the plastic could affect the magical energy in its visinity, in turn. In hindsight, That should have been obvious, but it took some testing to confirm. Further testing allowed me to pin down exactly what concentrations and shapes of plastic produced what effects.
At that point, I came accross an article speculating that sound waves had an electro-magnetic component to them. Given that light waves are in themselves an extrememly high-frequency electro-magnetic wave, I experimented with emulating all magical ingredients with electricity only. It took a lot of work, but I made it. And, in fact, it turned out that using light and sound waves was wasting a lot of energy for no gain whatsoever.
I decided to examine my research to that point. I had found an unkown type of energy that I have been able to link directly to the art of magic. I have been able to acquire a type of magic-reactive plastic that can both measure magical energy as well as focus it. I have also been able to produce a machine that can provide the "ingredients" for magic in raw form, in effect converting magical energy into tangible form. I had all the ingredients of a machine that could do magic, but it was still inefficient.
With my newfound ability to measure magical energy, I was able to trace a major source of inefficiency - a lot of the enrgy I was putting into my spells was going towards dispersing the magical energy I was actually trying to draw upon, wasting my energy and reducing my return at the same time. I also found that the most efficient transformation for magical energy was into electricity and electro-magnicity. I am still unable to explain exactly why that is.
I continued experimenting with my calibrations, and I was able to increase the output of my machine immesurably. But as the calibrations became more and more complicated, my ability to use the machine decreased. It was becoming just too difficult for me to operate it manually. Drawing on a standard PC operating system for inspiration, I was able to write a computer code that allwoed me to calibrate the machine based on what I wanted it to do, rather than manually turning each dial, and the programme would do the calibrations for me. Some efficiency was, unfortunately, lost, but it was a negligible amount, and the return on this tradeoff was my ability to actually use the machine. For the first time since I started this project, I found something that is actually practical, and that I can use without spending days preparing for it.
The switch to automatic calibration, with a few alteration, of course, managed to push the machine into overefficiency - an efficiency of over 100%. I was, in effect, getting more energy out of the machine than I was putting into it. That had several potential benefits. For one, that made it an overunity machine - a perpetual engine, capable of powering itself while doing work infinitely. It also meant that I could make the power source smaller and less powerful while maintaining a high level of output.
And that would have been that, but another point in the ancient books caught my attention - magical armour. Most people believe this is a fairy tale. The existence of magical ore is usually restricted to fantasy novels. But the accounts were so convincing that I did a little digging. I found something very interesting. That reactive plastic I had been using, that was so difficult to manufacture was actually naturally-occuring. It was very rare, and it occured only when crude oil formed over an iron or copper ore vein. The plastic would molecularly fuse with the metal and remain fused even when it is melted. That produced magic-reactive metal which, when crafted into the right shape and consistency, could potentially disrupt the flow of magical energy, robbing mages of the energy that they called upon to cast their spells.
Again, what I had thought to be nothing more than a myth turned out to be true. And I knew that what can disrupt magical energy can also focus it. I experimented with coating metal with the plastic, but that interfered with its effect. Then I thought to introduce the plastic to a molten metal sample in a high-speed centrofuge. While not a very efficient method for production, that did end up giving me a material that was much, much more reactive than pure reactive plastic. Apparently Iron's magnetic properties increased the plastic's reacive properties.
Applying those materials to my machine pushed it into hyper-efficiency - efficiency of over 1000%. My machine was now producing many times more energy than it required to operate, allowing it to be both perpetual AND extremely powerful at the same time. It also allowed it to be extremely light. And that got me thinking. Could I make the machine actually portable? Until now I had imagined of mounting this machine on vehicles, or possibly carrying it in a backpack. But with efficiency as great as this, I could potentially miniaturise it enough for it to be hand-held. Or even integrated.
That sparked my imagination. Could I make a suit of magic aromour and mount my machine into it? It certainly seemed possible. So I got to work and produced what I called my Prophecy power armour. It was powered by small, portable batteries for emergencies, but mostly it was powered by hyper-unity. It was capable of prducing enromous amounts of electricity, enough for it to arc several meters through air and sustain that arc almost indefinitely.
I was actually amazed with myself. I had produced a source of limitless power and been able to mount it on a suit of powered armour. I was sure that with the right calibrations and modifications, I could apply electricity into strengthening the integrity of the armour, thus providing protection, as well as increasing it through capacitors and getting it to jump even greater differences at an even higher voltage. Until then I had not intended to use this technology for violence, but it certainly had the potential to be used for it.
Unfortunately, D.A.T.A. fealt the same way. As soon as they found out what I had been researching, the pulled my funding. They claimed they didn't want to be associated with something as preposterous as techno-magic. The fools wouldn't admit it, but I knew the truth - they were afraid of my technology. Even I was a little afraid at the amount of power I had managed to acheive in such a short amount of time. But to simply scrap it because they're afraid of it? Human shortsightedness has never offended me greatly.
I took my project to M.A.G.I., hoping to receive funding from them. That was a big mistake. Not only did they claim such use of magic was "unnatural," they also made it their mission to erase it from the face of the Earth. I pleaded with them, explained the virtues of the technology. All that got me was being labled a "heretic." The simpleminded fools were willing to sacrifice the greatest invention of human history because it could, under unlikely circumstance, be dangerous? And to think I ever wanted to be part of that "elite."
I went into private research, cashing in my retirement fund and borrowing loans from everyone that would give me one. I was able to make prgress, even in the face of poverty. Some would say that I was obsessed with my work, but I was just doing the right thing. I could not let something as important as this be lost to the shortsightedness of small minds. They took away my whole life. My invention was the only thing I had left. But once it was complete, it would all be worth it.
Or so I thought. But the men in power had made a desperate move. One night the police broke into my basement laboratory and arrested me, confiscating my armour. I was charged with posession of illegal weaponry. Those cretens only saw my work as a weapon. They never saw the potential it could bring. They never understood that it could replace fossil and nuclear fuel forever. No, they couldn't see past their own noses.
They sentenced me to 30 years on trumped up charges, and my defence did nothing to stop them. They confiscated my armour and locked it in a storage boxe in some warehouse, never to be seen again. Oh, the world I had so tried to help had betrayed me. Never again would I try to help. Never!
But good fortune was on my side once again. A person with a vision, with enough intelligence to see opportunity intervened. Lord Recluse's soldiers broke me out of prison and reunited me with my armour. They shipped me off the the Rogue Isles, where I was supposed to meet my destiny. I was also told Recluse appreciated my research, and he wanted to help me continue it.
It didn't take a genius to tell that Lord Recluse want to HAVE my research, not have me continue it, but I was happy to be reunited with my armour in any event. As soon as we arrived, I dispatched of the Arachnos soldiers and their vessle and went on to search for a place to continue my research on my own. I had actually never used my Prophecy armour for battle before, but I was astounded by how effective it was. My electrical grid stopped their bullets and incinerated them without allowing them to even nick my magical metal, while my concentrated electrical blasts simply fried the soldiers in an instant. Incredible!
Then I met my dubious destiny - Ezikiel Bane. Apparently he had been following my work for quite some time and knew of the plans for my break out. I tried to dispatch him, as well, but it was as if my electricity simply had no effect on him. He did not seem to want to hurt me, however, though he was very menacing. He offered me a deal - he would pay for my research and provide the facilities and equipment, and all he wanted in return was for me to carry on my research, as well as assist him some of his projects. He assured me that he wanted my complete product, my "ultimate power," and that I was the only one who could deliver it. He assured me that I was far too valuable to hurt in any way. I'm not sure why I agreed, but I did.
Since then I have been working in his labs, refining my technology, adding more functions and further increasing its efficiency to levels I had not imagined possible. Lord Bane, as everybody calls him, has so far not directly threatened me in any way, nor has he directly interfered with my work. But he has gone to great effort to make it known that things get done his way, and that dissenters are "erased" on the spot. He has also made sure to delay my research by sidetracking me often, and why he's doing that I cannot know.
But none of this matter. Despite Bane's distractions, I will get my project done. But he won't have it. I will. Paragon City wanted to see a weapon in my project, and for that they put me in jail. Very well. I will give them a weapon. I WILL gain ultimate power and I WILL show those smallminded fools what kind of power they refused. I will show them what kind of power they could have had, had they only had the foresight. I WILL make them respect me. Them, and everyone else.