| Basic Information: | |
|---|---|
| Alias(es): | Boss (The Mercenaries) Sir (Agent) Vic (Agent & Second) |
| Pronouns: | He/They |
| Species: | Grasshopper (formerly) Locust (formerly) Cordyceps |
| Age: | Adult |
| Residence: | Termite Capitol | Other Information: |
| Occupation: | Rocket Corp. Founder & CEO |
| Relationships: | Agent (close partner) Alan (enemy) Second (respects) |
| Affiliations: | Rocket Corp. |
| Status: | Alive |
Victim is one of the four "hollows" created by Alan. After being killed and is lucky enough to get brought back via cordyceps, he dedicates his second chance to killing Alan.
While alive, his colors and patterns would've been more similar to that of an eastern lubber grasshopper, specifically the black coloration.
After death, Victim's body lost most its coloration and pigmentation. The cordyceps making its home inside his body also worsened that, almost entirely changing the the patterns and colors before. Now he is primarily an earthy gray, with a almost black color for his wings and as an accent. He has white eyes with no pupil and iris, and a tear-like pattern coming from his eye. His body is also littered with minor holes, the largest being on his forehead. There is also a large crack in his thorax that he covers with bandaging, and he only has his two upper arms. His wings are also torn and littered with holes.
Victim is a apathetic bug. He tries not to let any expression show at all times and prefers to bury any emotions he feels away. Despite this, he has some pretty intense anger issues that show mostly when he feels his control is threatened. He isn't above manipulating or harming bugs to get what he wants.
At his core, he is a control freak who wants total control over the bugs around him and his enviroment. While he thinks he's healed from his trauma, he still acts out entirely because of it and hasn't healed at all. He refuses to let go of his death.
Victim was a stunted egg, and in fear of him turning into a monster, he was abandoned in the Giant's Lair. Alan found him, and watched as he hatched. Victim didn't last long under his care though, as shortly after failing again and again to fighting against Deadlanders, Alan got impaitent and tried healing him. He did so by impaling Victim with a crystal and killing him in the process. After tossing his body away, a cordyceps found and began to grow in Victim's body. Due to the lingering bits of Roach Crystals in his body, it matched just well enough to bring him back to life through the cordyceps. Unfortunately, its not a stable revival and the link between Victim's consciousness and the cordyceps is extremely fragile.
While patroling the Giant's Lair, some Wasp scouts found Victim stiffly moving around. They brought him back to the Wasp Kingdom. He was kept in the castle for a while to recover, with only the wasps helping care for him knowing about the cordyceps. After he recovered and was showing no signs of aggression, they allowed him to live in the Wasp Kingdom.
While living in the Wasp Kingdom, Victim had to go through military training like all the other inhabitants, and being surrounded by a lot of wasps still adjusting to the Queen's new pacifism, his wish for revenge was only enabled. Eventually he decided to actually go through with it, and moved to the Termite Kingdom to get ideas. While there, a living locust was extremely new to most bugs, and so he decided to use the attention to his advantage. Saying he'd work to making the Deadlands habitable, he established Rocket Corp within the Termite Capitol and threw his entire life into expanding the company enough so he could make killing Alan a reality.
It took some years, but eventually Rocket Corp slowly grew into one of the biggest companies in Bugaria. Despite having more than enough berries, the success, and being plenty well known, it wasn't enough for Victim. He never forgot where he came from. He hired explorers, even using a retired one as his right hand and practically as an extension of him. Eventually rumors of two wasps that spoke of the Deadlands like a home and bragged of killing Deadlanders came to him. Of course, these rumors only spread so far because the two explorers nearly took out a chunk of the Outskirts in a single fight, with one vanishing and the other landing in Rubber Prison.
Victim ended up sending the mercenaries to the one in Prison, if they were wasps he could do a lot with them, but more importantly they held information that had long since slipped from his rotting mind. They ended up retrieving the Dark Lord with the promise of rehabilitating the wasp to the public, but in reality he was just another guard dog. Unfortunately he was just a paper wasp, but he could be easily manipulated all the same. Dark was more than helpful to aid in retrieving his brother, who was a hornet.
After apprehending Chosen and getting the information out of him-- only at the cost of a torn hornet's wing-- Dark was getting restless. But so was Victim. Throwing Dark back in the cell, he promised the wasp he'd return him to Rubber Prison as a lost cause after. Using a gem from the Ancient Crown, he was able to successfuly brainwash Chosen. With the mercenaries and new tool at his side, he took off to kill an Omega.
Upon getting to the Deadlands, he found his impaitence had cost him a lost wasp in the form of Dark escaping and somehow working with the bugs that had decided to live with the Omega. Not letting that deter him, he set the mercenaries to hold off the young bugs and Dark, so he could get Chosen to chip away at Alan. But as the fight went on, there were no deaths. Most of the damage was coming from him, and that enraged Victim, because it just meant that Alan was holding back.
Eventually the fight was lost, with Dark amputating Chosen's antenna to free him from Victim, and the mercenaries being thoroughly outnumbered. But Victim wouldn't give up. This was his chance, he had everything, and he swore he was going to kill Alan, and so he started losing it. Unfortunately for Victim, locusts are noisy creatures, and juvies like to wander.
All the noise attracted the juvenile Omega, who of course got curious by the noisy thing. Picking it up, Victim began panicking and desperately tried getting out, but he was still nothing compared to an Omega. But this triggered something in Alan, who immediately lunged at the Juvie and attacked it, forcing it to drop Victim. While the mercenaries and younger bugs hid, Victim stood shaking and still as he listened to the birds scream at eachother. He knew what it meant, it was a scream to challenge the other, but before he could get crushed, Agent pulled him away.
They were all leaving. And while the giants fought, Agent tried getting Victim to go with him. Victim refused, and told Agent to meet back at the Termite Dome. Agent reluctantly agreed, and left with the others. Victim had no intention of going back. After seeing everything today he was certain he knew what he was missing. So he went to Snakemouth Den.
Victim wasn't stupid. He knew everything there was to know about cordyceps. He knew about the experiments under Snakemouth, the very ones that had to be swept under the rug, but more importantly he knew what laid inside it. Unregistered, entirely free roach crystals. Ones with all kinds of magic nestled inside. So he went, and while the various zom-bugs gave him trouble, he found a dead beetle's charge to be the perfect thing to break the crystals into easily transportable pieces. The moment they were out of use, he'd redirect them into the flooded water.
He knew what seperated from the others, from the ones that survived. They had magic. They had a fighting chance. He was born without sorcery, but he knew what connected every sorcerer. Those crystals. Maybe it was the unstability of the cordyceps inside of him, or maybe it was desperation, but he knew what separated him from the ones that could live.
A thin layer of chitin.
Agent had found him in those labs, and he wasn't alone. He brought the brats that ruined everything with him. Words wouldn't be able to reach Victim, just seeing his right hand standing alongside those five enraged him enough to cement his decision. Victim drove a crystal through his chest. His theory proved correct, as it provided him with blight magic, enough to toss Agent away when he wouldn't listen.
But for some reason, it wasn't enough. He still couldn't stand his own against the brats, and so with every time he got knocked back down he got back up. He dragged himself back up to his feet, driving another crystal through that useless layer of chitin, and continued fighting. Again and again and again. Completely oblivous to how the cordyceps grew and clung to the crystals, completely oblivious to his own slipping mind.
On the last crystal, he lost whatever weak grip he had on his consciousness. That link was never a strong one, and he finally found a way to snap it. No better than the undead bugs he redirected into the river, he started attacking blindly. He fought without any memory of training. He fought with the strategy of a cornered animal, and the longer the fight went on the more the cordyceps forgot about its host. The tendrils had completely outgrown the exoskeleton, slipping from the cracks in his body or making their own. One had completely torn through his eye, another had severed the hand and loosely connected it in favor of range.
In the end, Agent and the five bugs only won by starving it. It burnt through the energy of the crystals fast enough that it ended up withering and going limp entirely. Agent didn't want to leave so began cleaning up by tearing the crystals from their body. Reluctantly, Second sat next to Agent, and decided to use his abilities to revive the cordyceps and heal the body. Without the crystals driving it insane, the link was reformed, but so, so fragile.
Victim awoke a week later in an inn. He felt a lot of things about the experience, but decided on ignoring it like he always does. But he couldn't deny that he failed. And he had no idea what to do next.
