Defender

Say hello to Jared ([link]) in his role as the armoured superhero Defender.

Physical Description & Appearance

Jared is just over 1.72 meters (5' 9") tall and weighs 65.77 kg (145 lbs). He has a muscular build and his hands and skin are rough from working outdoors helping his grandfather in the scrap yard. He has blue eyes and blue hair. His skin colour is slightly darker than Caucasian and is indicative of his Mexican origins. He also has a single gold ring in each ear.

Clothing wise, Jared prefers loose fitting garments that are easier to move around in. He wears a full motocross helmet when using his dirt bike, which, unlike the bike was not salvaged and was bought new.

Defender Armour

The new Mk 1 Defender Armour is a vast improvement over the prototype model that Jared used previously. The Z-Neutrino energy projector, which was capable of molecular disintegration has been replaced by a shoulder mounted missile launcher armed with 5 Particle Impulse missiles. The warheads cause localised gravitational stresses at the impact point which ignore armour.

A 9 terrawatt particle beam forms the armour's main offensive ranged weapon. Since it is capable of being modulated to a non-lethal frequency, Jared prefers to use it over less subtle attack methods.

Sonic dampners and smart liquid crystal coating give the armour an impressive stealth mode. Although it's not possible to render the suit completely invisible, it comes damn close to being invisible in poor lighting conditions.

One of the improvements that Jared made was to the helmet. Making it much easier to remove in an emergency. Since the suit is environmentally sealed, it is air tight. A fatal vulnerability when the suit is struck by an EMP. Something that Jared discovered by accident when fighting a smarter than average bank robber.

The armour plates and skintanium undersuit are impervious to normal gunfire.

Finally, the "production" model has two features that his father never thought to include in the prototype. An XM Satellite Radio with MP3 playback capability. And air conditioning.

Background

Jared is the most recent incarnation of Defender. A position he inherited when his father, the previous Defender, died. He himself had inherited it from his father, Jared's grandfather.

From an early age, Jared was mostly raised by his Grandfather. Both his mother and father had full time jobs that often involved lengthy overtime. Consequently, Jared would often go to the scrap yard owned by his grandfather after school until one of his parents (usually his mother) picked him up.

His father’s night time activities as Defender prevented him from spending a lot of time with his son. When his mother was killed in a car crash shortly after his 7th birthday, Jared's grandfather increasingly began to look after the boy during the week. Because of this, father and son began to grow apart.

Although Jared now knows the reason behind his father's frequent absences, at the time this caused some friction between the two of them. It is ironic that Jared had an unofficial poster of Defender printed by a comic book on his bedroom wall. Jared looked up to the hero but his father never felt it was right to tell him the truth. He was still too young.

When Jared turned nine, his father bought him a dog as a birthday present. Jared named him Bucky and the two have become inseparable. When his father died, Jared refused to come out of his room for two days and Bucky was the only one he allowed inside.

The presence of his grandfather was a stabilising influence for Jared growing up and he instilled in the boy a strong sense of right and wrong. Since he spent much of his time at his grandfathers scrap yard, Jared became interested in mechanics and, encouraged by his grandfather, he spent two months restoring a dirt bike someone had dumped at the scrap yard.

18 months ago, Jared's father was seriously wounded during a battle. Although he defeated the foe he was fighting and handed him over to the police, the wounds he had sustained were ultimately fatal. He had lost a lot of blood and was suffering from major internal bleeding. Sam made it home before finally succumbing to his wounds, dying on the kitchen floor.

Jared was not home that evening. He had been at the inaugural game for the city's new baseball team, the Liberty Rockets, with his friends Mark and Lee. The only person home at the time was Jared's grandfather. He realised that if Defender's real identity was ever revealed it would place his grandson's life in danger so he stripped his son of his costume and made it look like he was the tragic victim of a home invasion. Jared came home to find police cars surrounding his home and his father's body being loaded into the coroners van. Since his grandfather was his only living relative, Jared went to live with his grandfather at the scrap yard.

Two months later, Jared discovered a hidden workshop inside several connected boxcars buried beneath a pile of rusting cars. Inside he found his grandfathers old costume, his father’s bloodstained bodysuit and the prototype BattleSuit built by his father. After Jared confronted him, his grandfather admitted that his father had been Defender and that he had been Defender before him. He had concealed the truth as he felt the boy would not understand and would do something foolish like use the BattleSuit to pick up where his father was left off. Being Defender had robbed him of his legs, taken his son and he'd be damned if he would lose his grandson too.

Of course, there was no going back now. Jared wouldn't take "you're too young" as an answer. He'd carry on the “family business” either with or without his grandfather’s help. Therefore, to ensure that he didn't get himself killed, he began training Jared to use the suit and the various gadgets that he had built with his son. As far as the media and the public are concerned, Defender is back. No one knows that Defender is the grandson of Mexican immigrants and no one suspects that he is really a 16-year-old kid in a suit of power armour pretending to be his father.

Recently there has been a dramatic increase in gang violence in North Edge, and the neighbourhood has been described as a "virtual war zone" by some in the media. With the team scattered, Jared has been left to deal with the situation by himself and has quickly become overwhelmed. His grandfather is increasingly worried that his grandson is pushing himself too hard. The team's base was badly damaged during the Battle of Liberty City and was abandoned. Since then, Jared has taken to expanding the hidden bunker under the scrapyard, hollowing out the ground and building a garage and workshop. With his grandfather's help, Jared has also been able to correct some of the design flaws in the original Defender Armour. Its obvious that his father never intended the prototype to be used "in the field".

Friends

Casey Jones (15/F)
Best friends since kindergarten school, Casey and Jared have grown up together, each looking out for the other and getting each other in trouble with their parents. Jared is unfortunately having an iPod moment when it comes to Casey. Over the years, she has developed feelings for Jared that he is completely oblivious to. She has recently discovered that the Defender is really Jared.

Mark Robins (16/M)
When Mark's parents moved to Liberty from the East Coast two years ago, Jared was the first kid at school to speak to him, since then they have remained close friends. Mark's parents don’t know that Jared got him into dirt bikes. They would be shocked to know that the two often take to the hills on a weekend on bikes. Mark hides his bike at Jared's.

Lee Tyre (15/M)
When they first met in elementary school, Lee and Jared fought like cats and dogs. Every week they were sent to the principal for fighting. Eventually they both gained a grudging tolerance of each other and soon a mutual respect. Lee is a big animé fan and a huge Megas XLR fanatic, despite its cancellation.

Bucky (6/M)
Jared's pet dog.

Warp - Sarah Jenkins (15/F)
A student at North Edge High that gained teleportation powers after taking drugs at an illegal rave. Afterwards she began a short-lived career as a "super" villain. However, she soon began to rethink this decision and took on a different persona as a night time hero. Sarah took shop class with Jared and it was there that he recognised her as "Pest" (as he called her while she was still a villain). For some reason he didn't turn her in and eventually persuaded her to change sides. Sarah is currently Jared's girlfriend.

The Eye (??/M)
He's terribly mysterious. He's also Jared's history teacher and "partner in crime."

“Mr Cooper” (37/M)
Shortly after Jared's father died, Jared was badly beaten in a fight with Robin, North Edge High’s biggest jock and biggest jerk. After picking himself up off the floor, Jared met a stranger who offered to teach him how to defend himself properly. Over the next few months, Jared regularly met with Mr Cooper at a gym and after Jared found out the truth about his father, Mr Cooper was there to offer advice and guidance. Jared has always felt that he could tell him anything and be sure of complete secrecy.
Cooper is a Watchman, a member of a secret society formed entirely from the spirits of dead heroes given the chance to return to the mortal world in order to guide the next generation of heroes. He is also Jared's dead father. Sam is taking the opportunity to be there for his son, something he always assumed there would be time for while he was alive. Eventually, Jared will no longer need Cooper's guidance or advice and when that time comes, Sam will return to the afterlife and all memory of Mr Cooper will fade from the mortal realm.

Rogues Gallery

The Masked Bandito (?/M)
Other villains shun him, heroes detest him. The Masked Bandito is an embarrassment to the costumed villain world. A self-proclaimed "Protector" of the "oppressed Hispanic peoples of the south west." Unfortunately, his "protection" seems to consist of armed robbery, petty crime and vandalism. He has been arrested and deported back to Mexico a number of times. Each time he comes back to the US to cause trouble. He is an incompetent pest with a inflated sense of his own importance and ability.

Amy Chang, Action 5 News (29/F)
Action 5's crusading reporter and a minor celebrity in Liberty. When the crap hits the fan, Sharon Chang is often on the scene before anyone else in the Action 5 News Chopper. For some reason Chang has it in for Defender and she is determined to discover who the Defender really is.

Carlos Mendez (15/M)
Carlos and Jared used to be friends. Carlos was always the wilder one of the pair. Their friendship faltered when Carlos began to hang with the wrong crowd and get involved in petty crime. When Carlos joined a street gang, he tried to get Jared involved. Jared refused and their friendship further deteriorated.
Last month Carlos turned up at the scrap yard asking for Jared's help in hiding some stolen drugs. Jared refused, unwilling to break the law that he had been brought up to respect. However, he didn't report the incident to the police or tell his grandfather. Jared is torn, on one hand he feels that he let their former friendship get in the way of doing the right thing, but on the other, Carlos asked for his help and Jared has always been loyal to his friends. It doesn't help that Carlos has been missing now for two weeks.

Doppel (?/?)
Human or otherwise, the entity known as Doppel is wanted in 39 US states and 3 Canadian Provinces for multiple counts of murder and identity theft. He is number four on the FBI Most Wanted List. No one knows what Doppel looks like or whether he is male or female. This is because of the method of his crimes. By "absorbing" one of a victim's internal organs, he gains the ability to alter his appearance to an exact likeness of his victim. He also gains complete access to their memories. An organ absorbed by Doppel replaces his own and he can use that victim’s likeness as long as he keeps the organ. Doppel is capable of absorbing hearts, livers, kidneys and lungs so he can morph to 6 different identities as well as his own. He poses as his victim long enough to drain all financial accounts and wreck the person’s life.
Recently he has begun to choose his victims more carefully in order to work his way up the corporate and government chain of power.

Lucian Carvelo (56/M)
Once one of the biggest crime lords in Liberty City, his criminal empire came crashing down in the early 90s when thanks to the actions of the second Defender, he was convicted and incarcerated. Lucian swore revenge on the man (or woman) that had ruined him and he spent the next ten years gathering any scrap of information on Defender that he could get his hands on. Shortly after his release, he finally gained conclusive proof who Defender was but by that time it was too late, Sam Sanchez had died two months earlier. Although Lucian was aware that Sam had family, Lucian was a throwback to an older type of criminal. One that believed that an enemy's family members were not legitimate targets.
Then, Defender reappeared after an 8-month absence. Lucian studied this new Defender and saw that his fighting style was the same as the previous and that the new BattleSuit seemed to be an evolution of the second Defenders body armour. Even the energy weapon used by the armour shared similarities with the old Defender Rifle. Could Sam Sanchez have faked his own death?