Mercy 8162

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Background

Powers and Abilities

Mercy is :

She tends to show off her acrobatic skill in combat. Especially when dodging ranged attacks.

Soundtrack

Some British music from 1988, lessee…

One right popular tune was “The Only Way Is Up” from Yazz. It’s a good marker of that time and place.

I’d consider it one the last hi-NRG hits. Hi-NRG which was a sort of hybrid of disco and electronica during the 1970s and 1980s, going for fast and punchy club beats. A lot of later eurodance and house music had some roots in hi-NRG.

History (personal background)

The only child of wealthy industrialist Anton Connaught, Mercy wanted for nothing during her formative years. While 95% of the world’s population starved, Mercy had every luxury.

Her only passion (apart from being pampered by her doting father) was athletics.

Mercy’s mother was savagely murdered. But that left her ten-year old daughter oddly unmoved.

I’m fast and I’m strong…

In sharp contrast, the death of her father in 8154 — his torn body found lying in a Game arena — shattered the shelter that was her existence.

Mr. Connaught was assumed to be the victim of a unreported collateral damage. This was commonplace with so many Games taking place in civilian areas.

But Mercy suspected otherwise. Her doubts were strengthened when several business competitors descended with indecent haste to try and buy out her father’s company.

…my reflexes are good…

Mercy vowed to thwart the killers’s plans. She’d avenge her father, no matter what the cost.

She began by working like crazy to make her father’s business even more profitable.

Ms. Connaught then signed up with a minor league Game team called The Equalizers.

Suspecting that a Game team had been hired to “accidentally” kill her father, Mercy infiltrated the Game. She investigated for four years, exposing the group that killed Anton Connaught. Then she assassinated them all.

Mercy was arrested after murdering the paymaster. But — after many hours of negotiation — she was surrendered into Dragon’s protective custody.

…it doesn’t take long to achieve…

Dragon saw her potential as a player for his recently-formed Dragon’s Claws team. Amidst ample controversy, he put her deadly talents to good use on the Fever Pitch.

The Claws won that championship and went on to become world champions.

But some time later, the Game was stopped by the WDC.

… my deserved revenge

With the Game gone, Mercy returned to her vigilante ways.

Her vendettas took so much of her time that her father’s business went bankrupt. And most of the criminals she caught were rich enough to evade prosecution.

Mercy was gravitating toward a Punisher-like killer vigilante career when N.U.R.S.E. re-formed Dragon’s Claws. The Claws would now be a law enforcement unit, under Dragon’s leadership.

History (events during the series)

After an Evil Dead rampage killed nearly 50 gendarmes, N.U.R.S.E. decided to recruit Dragon’s Claws to take their old rivals down. They sent Deller – their most competent military police tactical leader.

However, Deller was a glory hound. Between this and underestimating the threat posed by ex-Game champions, he felt sidelined by the Claws’ return.

But after the incident with the Wildcats, Dragon took N.U.R.S.E.’s offer.

What he didn’t realise was that Deller and N.U.R.S.E. had covertly paid the Wildcats to attack.

The importance of proper technique

Dragon insisted on explaining his decision to his family, and took a brief unauthorised leave to do so. Deller seized the occasion to order the Claws to follow him into the ‘Pool (apparently the remains of Liverpool).

The ‘Pool was an overgrown, wrecked maze – and the Evil Dead’s home turf. Deller foolishly went in without a specific plan.

However, Dragon’s wife had left with their son. Denied his reunion, Dragon returned in time to rush to the ‘Pool and turn the situation around. The Claws thus survived, and slew three Evil Dead players out of five.

This humiliated Deller. He quietly swore he’d have his revenge against Dragon.

Channel City

The team was then dispatched to the ruins of Channel City, off the Southern coast of England.

The gleaming buildings had once been at sea, to add living space to the overcrowded Isles. But the loss of the Moon had left it resources-less on a dried sea bed.

(Presumably, the loss of the Moon and tides also significantly reduced the population).

The ruins of Channel City had been taken over by a hundred ex-Game players. These had reportedly imprisoned the remaining locals. Dragon and team were to free them, whilst accompanied by television broadcast drones.

High Father

However, when Dragon’s Claws came in at N.U.R.S.E.’s behest, they realised that the population sided with the ex-players.

Dragon therefore withheld fire, and went in to investigate. Soon, the team located the High Father – the leader of the Channel City rebels.

A former N.U.R.S.E. director gone rogue, High Father had taken large herds of livestock to Channel City. The meat was shared far more fairly than in Greater Britain – which explained the loyalty of the locals, new and old.

N.U.R.S.E. handler Mr. Stenson had the live broadcasts killed, though it was too late.

What the Claws did is undocumented. They presumably just walked out. There was no-one to actually rescue. And recovering the stolen livestock would just leave Channel City starving while the meat was hoarded by the wealthiest insiders, such as N.U.R.S.E.’s higher-ups.

But High Father told Dragon a thing or two about N.U.R.S.E.’s lies and manipulation.

To France

Mr. Golding, the British ambassador in France, was kidnapped by terrorists. N.U.R.S.E. sent Dragon’s Claws in. They were to secure an exchange of prisoners.

France had been disintegrating for at least a dozen years. Rival baronies had made governance at scale impossible. The terrorist organisation, La Folie, had been opposing this – but was itself splintering.

Double-crosses among La Folie fighters mired the Claws within a neo-medieval war. It was fought by French knights wielding melee weapons and astride robo-horses.

Seeking to avoid civilian casualties, the Claws sided with the La Folie loyalists. Two warring barons were thus deposed, and the ambassador freed.

Death’s Head

Alien robot Death’s Head then ended up in the ‘Pool. He had been reduced to human size and cast into the timestream by the Doctor (seventh regeneration).

Death Nell, one of the two survivors of the Evil Dead, hired him. With her fellow ex-player Slaughterhouse still recovering from severe wounds, this recruitment was indispensable to fight off a rival gang, Incinerator Jones’ Boys.

Meanwhile, N.U.R.S.E. continued investing in Dragon’s Claws. N.U.R.S.E. robot labourers built them a base in the outskirts of London.

When they were sent after the Jones Boys in the ‘Pool, the Claws ran into Death’s Head. Good tactics and more than a little luck allowed them to get rid of him, but he was too robust for them to destroy.

Oh Canada

The Claws were then sent to Canada.

This was in good part to get room for Deller to assassinate Dragon’s family. N.U.R.S.E. wanted Tanya and kin dead so they’d never convince Dragon to retire again.

However :

In affluent Montréal, the Claws went against a killer vigilante who had murdered a World Development Council higher-up. Claws member Mercy soon realised that this copycat was using her own methods.

Mercy ended up killing the copycat, seeing in her her own past failures and mistakes.

Return of the Evil Dead

Another Claw’s past then caught up. The inmates of the mostly-buried, abandoned Chaney Maximum Security Prison were still alive. They sent Death’s Head to capture their renegade member Scavenger.

The rest of the Claws came in in time. But that meant fighting the powerful Death’s Head, plus the prison gang. The team would have been killed, but Death’s Head walked away as a mark of respect for their skills.

Meanwhile, the Evil Dead were back at strength. They broke into the N.U.R.S.E. headquarters to avenge their fallen.

The Evil Dead also sought to put an end to N.U.R.S.E. racketeering them. N.U.R.S.E. had been extorting money from ex-Game players for years. A key reason why N.U.R.S.E. had reactivated Dragon’s Claws was as muscle against the most dangerous teams refusing to pay.

Fall of N.U.R.S.E.

Dragon confronted Deller and Stenson over the attempted murder of his family. However, Ambassador Golding convinced him to let them live, so Greater British authorities could investigate the out-of-control N.U.R.S.E..

Meanwhile Matron, the secretive head of N.U.R.S.E., murdered the other directors. She then personally faced the Evil Dead, who were tearing through her military police.

Matron took out both Dragon and Slaughterhouse. However :

In the fracas, Slaughterhouse and Death Nell killed Matron, and the Evil Dead exfiltrated.

World Development Council

The World Development Council sought to distance itself from the N.U.R.S.E. disaster. And, in particular, that they had agreed to N.U.R.S.E. reactivating the Claws.

Sensing where this was headed, Ambassador Golding successfully advocated on behalf of the team.

The Claws were supposed to stay put at their base in the meanwhile. But they left to stop the violent hijacking of an enormous truck carrying dangerous wastes. Deller was in the field with them.

The Claws then learned that the Shrine was holding Tanya and her family hostage. Though Digit insisted that they not go, Dragon took the Claws to storm Shrine’s fortress.

In the fray :

Though he was shocked, Dragon agreed to continue working with Ambassador Golding. After all, only the Claws were able to stop the worst menaces threatening what was left of the world.

Description

Mercy runs around in a leotard because of reasons.

The puffed and feathered hair, the small scarf, the spurs, the headband, the aerobics workout leotard, etc. — are straight from 1980s pop music videos. There are a lot of circa-1980 British New Wave music  aesthetics, many of which were inherited from Glam Rock  aesthetics.

Personality

Mercy is particularly intense and driven. This is both her blessing and her curse. The natural end to her previous path as a vigilante is to become a merciless murderer.

She struggles against her murderous instincts as she prefers Dragon’s path of being agents of positive change. Still, Mercy often feels that a well-placed bullet or knife is the best way to serve justice.

Quotes

“Mercy is my name. Not my nature.”

Some guy: “You are being used. You’re NURSE’s hired killers… their death dealers…”
Mercy : “Yeah. So what ?”

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