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Earth, 8162

At that point of history, Earth is broken. It is slowly drifting toward the sun for unknown reasons. The moon has been at least partially destroyed. Most of the large bodies of water have evaporated – leaving gigantic beaches with a few pools of stagnant saltwater for miles and miles. The animals left are few and far between.

Humanity as a whole seems to have thrown up its hands in the air and given up. There are no apparent great human goals. People just pass the time until they die.

Most countries have broken up in small kingdoms, varying from the high-tech arcocity to Mad Max-esque thugs roaming aimlessly about. Social unrest and riots are a constant problem in major cities. The police forces seem outmatched, outstretched and out of sleep.

Fancy a game ?

There is something that looks more or less like a planetary ruling body – the World Development Council. Its influence seems uneven. In some places it’s the actual government, in some places people have barely heard of it. The W.D.C.’s approach to global unrest was classic : panem et circenses.

Thus was born the Game. Originally it was a sort of team paintball competition. It gradually became a hugely popular bloodsport, and continued to degenerate until it was a free-for-all. The best team in the tournament was the widely popular Dragon’s Claws.

Another favourite and close competitor were the Evil Dead. Unlike the Dragon’s Claws, the ED racked a body count in the hundreds.

As the Game was starting to cause more unrest than it solved, the WDC decided to stop it. They created the National Union of Retired Sport Experts (NURSE) to try to provide gainful employment for ex-players who couldn’t managed to find any. They certainly didn’t want the dogs of war to be let loose.

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Powers and Abilities

Mercy is :

• A mistress of athletics and acrobatics.
• A highly competent Game player, soldier and assassin.
• A formidable knife fighter.

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

History

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 real 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. 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, which was commonplace with so many Games located 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.

I’m fast and strong, my reflexes are good…

Mercy vowed to thwart the killers’s plans and 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 kill her father so it would look like an accident, Mercy began to work inside the Game. She carefully investigated for four years. Then she pinpointed 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, my deserved revenge

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.

Some time later, the Game was stopped by the WDC.

With the Game gone, Mercy returned to her vigilante ways. Her vendettas ate away her time so badly 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 vigilante career when the N.U.R.S.E. re-formed the Dragon’s Claws. The Claws would now be a law enforcement unit, under Dragon’s leadership.

Description

See illustrations.

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 killer.

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 ?”

By Sébastien Andrivet.

Source of Character: Dragon’s Claws (Marvel UK).

Helper(s): Roy Cowan.