Born in Chicago, mother of Polish descent, father of Greek descent. Pete's dad is an electronics repairman, semi-retired, who used to do a lot of union contracting in his youth, but years ago opened a store for consumer electronics and repair that was fairly successful. Has someone else run the day to day now and takes it easy. Mom was a homemaker, but left Pete and his dad when Pete was still in his late teens and hasn't maintained any contact.
Pete spent a lot of time working with his dad in the repair shop, fixing stuff and getting OJT'd. He was never terribly social, though he had a tight group of three or four friends that he grew up with. The one thing that could distract him from gadgetry and wires was super hero movies and TV shows; for years he watched every supers movie of any consequence that came out whether it was good or not. With just him and his dad around Pete was generally more comfortable alone, working on a gizmo and day dreaming about being a superhero.
He went to college at Champaigne, where he struggled through to get a BS in Electrical Engineering. He was smart enough, and aced all the practicals and labs, but he struggled with the theoretical aspects and bookwork. Pete's a hands-on kind of guy. Also, secretly Pete was spending a lot of his off hours working on the idea of building a power armored suit for himself and becoming a superhero rather than studying or doing his homework. Over the course of four years he was able to cobble together a crude suit from parts on hand, more of an exo-skeleton really, but it had too many shortcomings to be viable and Pete finally lost heart and gave up shortly before he graduated. However one useful thing did come out of it; he developed a very efficient miniaturized battery power system for use in his suit that was actually pretty useful for its own sake, and which he was able to get a patent on.
After graduation he had a round of interviews with companies interested in him due to his battery discovery, but he managed to mess up all of them with his over the top personality and poor social skills. In the end, PRIMUS was the only interested party that tendered a job offer, and Pete gladly took it. However, where some might have been disappointed by such an outcome of having to settle for a lower paying government job, Pete was actually quite happy; his secret attempt at becoming a superhero himself had failed, but working for PRIMUS was pretty cool. He entertained a few daydreams that he would test positive for Cyberline compatability and become a Silver Avenger, or become a key enabler for a well known superhero or something like that.
Once again reality didnt quite live up to Pete's expectations and he spent the next seven years working as a field tech, R&D guy, and power system expert for PRIMUS. His "unique personality" and reputation for being hard to work with resulted in him being retained for his skills, but largely left to his own devices in a basement lab and not included on as many cool projects as his skills should have entitled him to. Eventually, due to personnel and time shortages, he was included as part of the team working on the Ankylosaur armor diagnostics after it was captured. Glad to finally be doing some interesting work, but realizing that he had peaked at PRIMUS and was never going to be anymore than a senior engineer, Pete rekindled his old dream and decided that this was his opportunity to stop being a nobody and become part of the world of supers.
He secretly made copies of the blueprints and used spare parts salvaged in the past plus some materials requisitioned on the sly to build his own suit. The armor is very obviously modeled on Ankylosaur since that provided the bulk of the base design, but it also has some improvements inspired by other suits of armor Pete had analyzed in the past. Of particular note, Pete was able to acquire a guantlet from Armadillo's armor suit that had been salvaged from a conflict with FBI Agent Teknique and turned over to PRIMUS for study. He repaired it, and fitted it with a new power supply.
His suit finally completed, Pete quit his job and began a career as a superhero. His first major success came in San Diego where he tracked down and defeated the acquatic villainess Mantara, turning her in to custody. He also swiped some of her tech and incorporated it into his suit.
He has not yet registered w/ PRIMUS because he fears that if they realized his real identity they'd figure out he abused his access while an employee in order to build his suit, and would move to confiscate it. He plans to build a name and good public image for himself first and then register, in the hopes that his transgression will be forgiven in the face of his public service. |
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