Mod - ACT 1

Softspoken, mostly unfazed and at slyly calm, Mod rarely shows intense emotions apart from some rare occasions. He mostly looks almost melancholic or tired, a look aided by his deep-set eyes.

Besides the tired look he's quite witty, quick to answer and defend himself if there's the need. He also tends to weaponize his looks if everything else fails, or to strategically take out targets.

He's got a hidden interest in old technology, vintage consoles and especially instant cameras, given also the fact that his turbulent life left him with frequent memory issues when social life is involved. He keeps photo albums that span from his teens to present times and he's extremely jealous of them.

Biography

VITALITY CORP.

Mod's unique abilities attract the attention of an organization that monitors and studiespeople with anomalous powers. Recognizing his potential, they bring him under their wing, separating him from his family.

Mod's care was assigned to Dr. Vasilij Vitali, a promising scientist working in the R&D branch at the organization, situated and masterfully hidden around lake Balakai, and one of the first to approach the study of weird powers suddenly developing in people around the globe. Mod, finally in an environment that seems comfortable to him, grows up surrounded by scientists and enthusiastically participating in experiments and studies regardless of their danger, taking the rougher ones as a test of endurance.

He spends his teen years like that, developing his powers, strategy, combat skills and a bit of an ego as, at this point, he is brought up exactly in line with the requirements Vitali wanted, and earning a fully comfortable existance and Vitali's forgiveness if he ever had slips of misbehavior and general mischief in exchange for his efforts.

As the years pass, Vitali detaches from the previous organization and founds a corporation of his, humorously named "Vitality" after himself. Alongside this growth, Modya's status rises. At the age of 18, he is appointed as a mentor for newer and less experienced pyromancers.

Soft-spoken and slyly calm in behavior, Mod lives his life at the lab pretty much free to do whatever he wants since he's covered by being one of Vitali's favorites. He quickly gains the sympathy of some of his colleagues and the antipathy of others, the latter ones sometimes curiously disappearing.

He meets Zima, the base's coroner medic, during one of these "disappearances" when Zima catches Mod sporting a rather cliché blood-soaked shirt. Instead of reporting him to Vitali he helps Mod get rid of the body since Mod is tiny and Zima basically has a good ol' neutral dad energy. Their friendship and Mod's respect for him starts growing since that the event.

THE STAY IN CYPRIA

After some years, when Mod is 23, Vitali indicts a conference slash lab trial for his best subjects to participate in. He convokes a hundred or so of them in a facility located in the island of Cypria, along with a few guests to whom he plans to show his research and advancements. This is also an excuse for him to indict missions of various nature for whoever might pay for them (Vitality needs its funds), among them intelligence retrieval, "cleaning services", etcetera.

During his stay in the location Mod gets to know the other subjects including Ezra, a strongly built, gruff and solitary pyromancer to which Mod discovers he has a weakness for. This weakness displays at first as playful annoyance towards Ezra as well as unceremoniously successful attempts at flirting, together with an extreme competitiveness, a trait that wasn't discouraged by Vitali at all as long as it didn't take focus from their missions.

However, as Mod and Ezra engage in deeper conversations, they discover that they're way more similar than they expected. Gradually, their connection deepens into genuine affection. As missions come and go, Mod begins to yearn for a life beyond constant training, missions, laboratories, and scientists — a life other than the one ke'd known since he was a kid. The two often go on escapades around the island of Cypria, exploring towns and the nearby coastline (which is mainly an excuse to draw them cute together).

Mod's discussions about yearning for a normal life begin to have an impact on Ezra as well. Gradually, he finds himself growing increasingly distracted from Vitali's rigid training regimens and the strict medical routine he's been sticking to due to his artificially induced powers. Due to this, Ezra starts losing health between missed doses and finds himself having seizures.

Following an especially severe episode, during which Mod briefly contemplates ending Ezra's life out of sympathy — wondering how they could possibly lead a normal life when such consequences stem from deviating from Vitali's regimen — Mod, filled with concern, calls for assistance.

This is when Vitali decides he can't ignore things anymore, as he sees that Mod and Ezra's estrangement from their responsibilities is becoming a problem and might mess up his plans. He takes the matters into his hands and decides to split up the duo: he tells Ezra that Mod had only gotten closer to him to kill him (not wrong) since he's already done it with a few of his colleagues that rubbed him the wrong way (also not wrong). Ezra unfortunately believes him. After this event, Mod is brought back to the Balakai lab without a word from Vitali and what happened, thus leaving him with the doubt of what Ezra will think of him.

BACK AT BALAKAI

Mod is upset for being abruptly brought back to base and is determined to make Vitali's life a living hell. Employees, scientists and fellow colleagues start falling like flies, Mod starts being generally uncollaborative in his experiments, and he begins straight-up neglecting his self-preservation and work at Balakai's base.

Of course Vitali is not okay with this, and fully knowing the reasons why he confronts Mod in a heated argument. Vitali reveals what he said to Ezra as justification for Mod leaving - instead of revealing that the scientist was not ok with the distraction of having feelings, he told Ezra that Mod would "lure him in and kill him at the first chance he got" as he'd done with many others - and it was true, just not in this case.

This made Mod tick and attack Vitali directly, Mod gets exiled to a facility in the city of Edenbanks, where he is supposed to help with the recruitment of newly-awakened pyromancers, basically being demoted of all of his privileges tat he had gained from being Vitali's best pupil. This doesn't stop Mod's want for revenge over the scientist, so he keeps causing problems over there too.

After witnessing the same situation of the Balakai lab, the employees of the facility try to kill off Mod and eliminating the tracks by melting him into a vat of acid. Due to the extremely resistant qualities of his armor Mod escapes this situation even though he suffered a lot of damage, a trait that now is reflected in this armor, jagged and disfigured. After killing everyone on th facility except for Zima, who was there only for surveillance and wasn't aware of the attempt. After this, the deal with Mod was that FINE, he could do whatever he wanted as long as he didn't bother the government or influence Vitali's research.

Relationships

Mod and Vitali:

Vitali was the scientist that got the responsibility of taking care of a young Mod when the latter gets taken in to be studied for his powers. They never develop a particularly familial bond, as Vitali never had the intention of being more than someone doing his job. Up until after Cypria Mod is very eager to collaborate with him, but after what Vitali did to him and Ezra Mod grows to despise him.

Mod and Ezra:

As soon as they meet in Cyprus as part of Vitali's Elite Team, Mod's first thought on Ezra is "this dude is an asshole and has to die by my hand", peppered by a strong physical attraction that catches even Mod by surprise. Little did he know that he'd very quickly grow fond of his loner attitude and the kind of attention he gets from him, although Mod would never admit even to himself that Ezra'd become his favorite person to spend time with.

Even after Vitali attempts to break their chemistry by putting an end to the "holiday", his aquaintance with Ezra shapes much of Mod's taste in people from then on.

Mod and Zima:

Zima "formally" meets Mod after he crosses him in a corridor while the latter was trying to hide, guilty of killing someone who hadn't been so subtle when bothering him.

After learning Mod's motives (and recognizing him as a familiar face) Zima felt sympathy for him and decided to help him wash his hands of the crime silently, thus instantly earning Mod's trust.

Mod and Sue:

Sue and Mod meet during their stay in Cypria. Their characters are NOT a good fit together, as Sue is very team-oriented and Mod is a firm believer of doing what he wants outside of his assigned tasks.

They grow to stand each other though, as Sue develops a friendship with Ezra and she encourages him to be nice to Mod.

See Also:

• A short playlist for da vibz: