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This article, Aubrey Parsons, was written by TalkingHead. Please do not edit this fiction without the writer's permission. |
"I've seen such injustice in this galaxy. The wicked believe that the mere laws of physics and belief of social and alpha-wolf dominance allows them to carry through with murder, thievery, and rape, and justifies their sociopathy. The righteous have conflicting views, but choose to just listen to news reports about it, discuss it, and pretend it never happened twenty four hours later."
-Aubrey Parsons, Naval Thunder Newshour, 2181
Aubrey Burton Parsons (born February 8, 2160) is an early hour news reporter, radio disc jockey, and biotic based on Arcturus Naval Station. Though medically retired from the Alliance Navy due to a gunfight with a slave trafficker that left him permanently deaf, he still receives pay and employment for limited service aboard the space station, as well as several military pensions. Most notably, he is the alter ego of the galactic vigilante and bounty hunter known as The Snow Angel.
Early Life (2160-2176)[]
Aubrey was born to an upper middle class family on Elysium, and the middle child of three siblings. His mother was a representative in the Elysium Legislative Parliament, and his father was a director in the Treadstone Colonial Banking Company based in Skyllia. He was extremely intelligent, which he was said to have known how to multiply and divide in preschool. His mother's brief exposure to raw element zero on a science lab tour when she was four months pregnant with him (no one claims to know how this exactly occurred), rendered Aubrey with biotic powers during youth and adolescence. Throughout school, he was bullied and scorned by other students, and his older sister Heather defended him on several occasions, and taught her brother how to stand up for himself with minimal violent behavior. She also encouraged him to take a martial arts class to build his self confidence, which he became very proficient at over a course of years. Developing an interest in the military in his high school's ROTC detachment, he befriended the instructor and retired Alliance Navy Lieutenant Commander Brad Fincher, who influenced him to join the navy, as well as enroll in the military biotic program.
Turning Point[]
Aubrey's deux ex machina in personality and life which ultimately shaped him into a galactic crime fighter was sealed shortly after the Skyllian Blitz that occurred in 2176. Due to his intelligence he was already nearing the end of his senior year of High School, and was highly expected to graduate valedictorian. His younger sister, November was a freshman, and Heather was majoring in medicine in Skyllian Medical College. The attack begun that afternoon. Aubrey's father was reportedly killed during the initial orbital bombardment when a middle weight cruiser accelerator round struck the building he was working in. During the landings, Batarian Pirates stormed the Parliament Building and took several prisoners, and Aubrey's mother was gunned down when she refused to cooperate with their demands. The three siblings of the Parsons family escaped by the family shuttle, and were picked up by the SSV Gravelotte, an Alliance Frigate.
Dramatically, the SSV Gravelotte was one of the very few Alliance vessels to become a casualty during the Skyllian Blitz, when it was hit in the stern by two anti matter missiles. The three fled in a life pod and were shortly captured by the pirates and taken to the Batarian flagship. On board, Heather was seized, beaten, repeatedly sexually assaulted, and finally killed by an officer while her younger siblings watched in agony. Just as another batarian was about to seize November and do the same when an attack run by the SSV Agincourt destroyed the engines and ruptured the power supply. In total darkness, he escaped and led November out of the cell, evading the two batarians and several others. They stayed out of sight inside the dreadnought for half an hour and it was pummeled by Alliance warships, and Aubrey was said to have killed the two Batarians chasing them with a stolen pistol.
Afterward, they made it to the lifepod area and encountered Surgune, the Batarian that had captured them. It was there that in a brief instance of remorse and pity, led them to a lifepod and apologized profusely for the officer's treatment. They escaped the battered dreadnought 30 seconds before the ship was halved by the SSV Kilimanjaro's main gun, the pod landing safely in the polar region of the planet.
Military Career[]
Suffering from harsh post traumatic stress and grief over his mother, father, and sister's death, he tightly clung to his last surviving sibling and went out of his way to ensure that she remain safe for the rest of her life in the hands of their aunt and uncle on Phobos. In this time, he lived among the slums of Lowell City, donning a mask, lightweight Titan Armor, confronting gang members, beating and incapacitating them, and leaving them, as well as their confiscated items on the doorstep of the local police stations bound in kevlar rope. During this time he set out to join the Navy, lying about his age. He underwent basic training at Fort Chaplin in Brazil, Earth, impressing his instructors due to his prior knowledge that Heather, as well as Commander Fincher taught him.
Further into his military career, he went into the O7 biotic vocational program, and trained as a biotic Adept. With an impressive military file even when just fresh out of training, he received his first posting in naval intelligence aboard the SSV Fuji as an operative. He felt out locations and he and the rest of his cohorts caught on to a slave trafficking operation in the Horse Head Nebula. Aubrey went for three entire days without sleep, gathering information, operating probes, and tapping communications obsessively. He nagged the senior officers, even the Second Fleet's Admiral, to take part in the operation as soon as possible. His superiors were highly concerned about his overly tenacious behavior, which they rightly blamed his traumatizing experience during the Blitz, and asked that he see the Fuji's psychologist. He refused, and demanded that he take part in the operation. His bold attitude toward his commanding officers had earned a great deal more respect, rather than scorn, and he was assigned to take part in the operation.
Several planets in the Nebula were raided and inspected, in what was one of the largest counter-slaver operations in Systems Alliance history. He was assigned to a squad of marine shock troopers on an installation on Amaranthine in the Fortuna system. Several Blood Pack mercenaries were guarding the facility, and he requested that the squad leader clear a direct path in the commons chamber while he cast a barrier around himself and sprinted to the back of the room. He killed two Vorcha with his sidearm before heading to the detention area and forcing the warden at gunpoint to disable the security systems and liberate the slaves.
Aubrey was awarded the Medal of Heroism and promoted to Service Chief. Afterward, he led a team of biotics on other raids in the campaign, the results more mediocre than his prior shining moment. After tracking the location of one of the operation's financiers, Gabbin Sterrik, a Salarian Mob Lieutenant. He continued to beg that the Alliance send him in to hunt him down, but was denied and suspended from active duty. During suspension, he was mysteriously contacted by the Mob's Commission, who offered him two hundred thousand credits to eliminate the Sterrik and his accomplices for operating outside regulations, and taking matters into his own hands. Refusing pay he commandeered a shuttle and head for Nonuel in the Hades Gamma cluster. The Alliance sent the SSV Pavia to follow, apprehend, and possibly help him. Upon arrival, he infiltrated Sterrik's dry docked merchant yacht, knocking out all four of his henchmen with his biotic powers, and confronting Sterrik. After a brief scuffle, Sterrik is heavily injured after being thrown around by Aubrey's abilities. After holding his Kessler to Sterrik's head for several minutes, Aubrey finally decided not to kill him and holsters his weapon, and properly take him, just as Alliance Marines storm the yacht.
As the marines enter, a military policewoman informs Aubrey that he is under arrest on charges of being Absent Without Leave, and Abuse of Military Property. As he was responding to the MP, Sterrik stood up and snatched Aubrey's sidearm from his hip, shooting him through the side of the head. The shot entered his left ear and out the right, instantly sending him into a state of shock. The squad of marines responded by pummelling Sterrik with their weapons until he looked like nothing more than grated biomatter and shredded clothing. The squad's medic quickly rushed to revive him and heal his wounds.
Hospitalization and Recovery[]
Apart from his eardrums being obliterated, his Hippocampus was nearly shattered, his Pituitary Gland was ruptured to the core, and there was short term nerve damage starting from his Amygdala. Parsons spent three months in a coma, his first week which he spent in critical condition aboard the Pavia's sick bay, before being transferred to Raleigh Naval Memorial Hospital in London on Earth. For most of this time he spent on state of the art life support equipment, having to be revived three times total before surgery and deep tissue medigel ablating could be administered. November, in a fit of grief, made an unsuccessful plea that he be pulled from life support near the end of his coma.
Aubrey began displaying signs of consciousness in 2179, such as muttering words, making eye contact with hospital nurses and orderlies, and moving. After ninety five days and four hours, he was fully conscious. The surgery had successfully undid damage to his pituitary gland and other segments of his brain, and was responding properly to the doctor's evaluations. However he had no way of hearing since his eardrums were damaged beyond repair.
Most noticeably, Aubrey began displaying abnormal biotic affinity. The loss of his eardrums, as well as the methods of repairing his lower mid brain with artificial hormones and enzymes, had expanded his biotic potential by nearly twenty-eight percent. He displayed far less lengthy biotic refraction periods (time segments where he is tired after using a biotic power) and more noticeably, an invisible biotic shell around his body, acting almost as a second skin. During his physical retraining by the hospital staff, the staff was shocked when he responded to the doctor's verbal comments (not directed at him). His biotic shell had caught sound vibrations, allowing him to understand and comprehend verbal communication.
He was released from the hospital shortly afterward, and he later learned that all the previous charges filed against him from Alliance Justice were dropped, and he was to be honorably discharged due to his injury. Naval regulations disallowed men and women from continuing service if they were permanently blinded or deafened, and the biotic sound barrier was not an excuse for the rule. Aubrey and November, the latter especially, didn't protest to these decisions. Aubrey, with his articulate speaking and experience with brushing with death on several occasions was offered the job as a host for The Naval Thunder Broadcasting Signal on Arcturus Station, acting as a radio DJ, and allowing him to continue a career, albeit unofficial to the navy.
Rise of the Snow Angel[]
His career as a disc jockey was met with much approval by Alliance servicemen and marines. However, he began to catch on to a smuggling and drug trafficking ring on Arcturus that was relayed from Illium. Contacting a friend and Alliance Quartermaster Whitney Kruger, he had a special suit constructed from various models from Hadne-Kenar, Aldrin Labs, and Elkoss Combine. The color was a grainy looking white, with special optics and a prototype cloaking generator. Shortly afterward, he used the suit to infiltrate a warehouse, apprehend several conspirators and dispose the drugs and smuggled goods.
Security was tightened on the station after the exposure, warranting questions and rumors about the mysterious crime fighter. Admiral Hiroto Ouchi eventually questioned Parsons in private, and the latter spilled the guts. During this time, Snow Angel's identity was kept secret, and the Alliance Navy gave Parsons funding for more bounty hunter operations.
After a large frequent amount of bounties, arrests, and deaths related to interplanetary criminal enterprises from 2180-2182, word of his exploits spread among several criminal groups such as The Blue Suns and the Salarian Mob. While tactically cloaked, his image on high frequency scanners were described looking faintly like an angel. Parsons heard from secondhand sources that criminals and news sources referred to him as "The Snow Angel". Thinking it would be amusing, he referred to himself as the name, and leaves an imprint of an angel on the snow or dust of the planet he visits on his job, acting as a calling card.
As the Snow Angel, Parsons vowed to never kill an assailant or bounty unless absolutely necessary.
Trivia[]
-Parsons draws heavy inspiration from comic book heroes. Particularly Matt "Daredevil" Murdock, Bruce "Batman" Wayne, Jackie "The Darkness" Estacado and Frank "The Punisher" Castle.
-Parsons' career as a part time disc jockey and vigilante was also influenced by the character Erica Bain from the 2007 film "The Brave One", which Jodie Foster plays a New York radio show host and is drawn to the world of vigilantism after her husband is murdered.
-The voice and appearance are based off of actor Edward Norton.