Name: Zachary Fitzpatrick.
Alias: Joyride.
Secret identity? Yes.
Age: Thirty.
Appearance:
Weighing in at 162lbs with a comfortable height of 5'10" it's safe to say that Zachary is a moderately built man. His toned physique and roughly callused hands suggest he's a working man with an active lifestyle, though no where near as active as it actually it. Pale, freckled skin and strawberry-blonde hair betrays an Irish ancestry, while blue betray little; Sitting flat and aloof, only occasionally brought to light with the perk of curiosity. His hair is kept short and relatively neat, while his beard shifts between soft stubble and a short, scraggly mass every time he fancies that he'll grow it out. Like most of his projects, such ambition comes to a halt when he realizes that it simply won't work out like he wants it to.
Costume: As
Joyride Zack dons a a form-fitting suit of custom designed motorcycle armor, specifically designed so the pads and plates underneath exaggerate his merely fit physique into something more appropriately heroic. The suit is colored a deep red, almost entirely in fact. The only notable exceptions being the face of the similarly styled motorcycle helmet, which is a black, and a utility harness, boots and gloves all the color of darkened natural leather. A pink, heart shaped patch sits on the right shoulder,
Joy spelled out in romanticized font within.
As the suit is technically armor is does provide some form of protection, normal punches and kicks do little, small knives and bludgeons don't have the penetration/power to do much more than potentially cause superficial injury and, of course, damage from crashes and throws is significantly reduced. Against the everything else the suit essentially just a bit of extra padding to get through.
The Harness is home to a plethora of pouches and loops, stuffed with everything Zack needs needs for emergency repairs and more. A large semi-automatic pistol rests at the hip, also for emergencies.
Civilian Clothing: Zack's hardly picky on what he wears in day-to-day life, generally leaning towards practical designs in a red color, but that's hardly the rule. His well-off lifestyle affords him stuff a bit higher on the price ladder, so they are usually well fitted and decently well made.
Joy: Zachary's super-vehicle is a similar red color to his suit, perhaps a bit brighter overall. The paint it kept in immaculate condition and every unpainted part is polished to a blinding sheen. Stylized blue-white flames highlight the edges, painstaking logistics taken into account order so they look right in either form, giving the machine a little bit of personality that it really didn't need. A familiar pink heart is present in either form (On the fuselage in travel mode and the right shoulder in combat mode), 'Joyride' replacing 'Joy'.
Superpower:
Mechanical Genius: Zack's natural inclination for mechanical devices borders on supernatural. It seems almost as if he was injected with the knowledge of engines, gearboxes and whatnot in the womb, whatever he wasn't born with acquired through rigorous self-education. If he's gotten his hands on a piece of machinery it's been taken apart and put back together again, most likely better then it was before. Given such a vastly mechanically inclined mind it seems almost criminal that he should remain a common mechanic. Not like he wants to do anything else, despite owning his own shop he puts the minimal required effort into his day job, 'wasting' his time on increasingly ambitious passion projects resulting in a string of increasingly spectacular failures. He never admits it's his own fault, rather that he's 'cruelly shackled by the boundaries of reality'. His only real success, by his standards, is his beloved Joy.
Joy: Half motorcycle, half combat-frame, all awesome. The brainchild of a man with way too much mechanical know-how and too little regard for practicality,
Joy is a 'super-vehicle', capable of transforming between a
travel mode and a strength enhancing
combat mode. This transformation is quite quick, taking about four seconds total and looking as if it could easily mangle Zachary if something were to go wrong. Which is absolutely correct. Specifically built for his frame anyone else who attempts to pilot
Joy risks injury or messy death during the transformation. Not that they would be able to pilot it on the first place, the control system is about as user-unfriendly as one could manage.
- Travel Mode: In travel mode Joy represents a large, heavy motorcycle, though almost any passerby could identify that something more lies under. In this mode it more-or-less functions just like its mundane counterparts, if not a bit better in most aspects. It can reach an absolutely mad 225mph assuming an appropriately long stretch of paved road and is overbuilt with redundancies so it could sustain a bit of damage before failing. Originally Zack intended this mode to be able to 'jump' but found that he couldn't find a way for him to do so without splatting as he landed.
- Combat Mode: When transformed into combat mode Joy 'wraps' around Zack, turning into a strength-enhancing exo-frame. Large mechanically assisted limbs encase his arms and legs, the windshield shifting to his back along with the relatively vulnerable engine. Unfortunately, the front of his torso and head are left unprotected, requiring him to block actively with his arms in combat. Despite its clumsy appearance, Zack pilots it like a pro, moving around as if he's wearing a second skin. Do not think it a subtle machine though, the poorly muffled motor screams with every effort while, light, puffy exhaust spews from the twin exhaust pipes behind his shoulders. Not that he minds, Joy is literally a machine of fight or flight.
For all of this trouble Zack gains a variable strength enhancing fighting vehicle (or 'You wouldn't understand' as he explains it to others), granting him the strength to pick-up and throw mid-sized cars and smash through concrete walls. Not easily mind you, to reach such heights he must 'redline' the motor, risking a blowout should he do it too many times or for too long. Not to mention the risk of hearing damage from the absolutely monstrous roar as the machine is pushed to its limits. Most times he simply limits it to a few times human strength, just so he doesn't doesn't absolutely murder some poor shmuck who's caught on the wrong side of his massive steel fists. It also slightly enhances endurance, just enough to keep him going through a protracted fight.
In either mode the greatest vulnerability is the motor, if it's blown out or damaged for any reason Zack is effectively 'de-powered' for as long as it takes for him to get it working again. Potentially an entire mission. The gas tank is also somewhat vulnerable, but is buried deeply enough in either form that that
Joy would have mostly likely been rendered inoperable before significant damage could be dealt. Still,
if it is damaged it is possible for a gas-fire to start, burning out the vehicle completely in short order.
Reason to join: Zachary sees the Volt Patrol as both a meaningful endeavor and as a good jumping point for a new chapter in his life. Not too mention it's a convenient way for him to live his vigilante lifestyle without fear of the authorities catching him, not that he thinks that possible.
Bio: The downfall of Zachary Fitzpatrick was quick as it was inevitable. His desperate attempt to balance a safe home life, running his own business would be enough to break many men, but he was hardly content with those two things alone and pursued a strange passion in the dead of night; Vigilantism.
When Zack met his wife nearly a decade ago he was a chronically unemployed 'professional' mechanic who barely survived off scrap and bit jobs. He was content, confident that the side project in his rented garage was going be his ticket to a fulfilled life. One night in some rundown bar in the middle of the city he looked up from his drink and chanced upon the eyes of an admiring lady. She smiled, Zack smiled and for a very long moment his grand plans were forgotten. They would marry two years later and only a year after that they bore a pair of twin girls.
Zack was thrust into a position of responsibility, though happier than he was before, he finally managed to hold down a full time job as a mechanic and soon found that his abilities far outstripped what he was payed. So he bought out that garage he once rented, spiffed it up and started his own practice of sorts, gaining a host of loyal clientele almost immediately as word spread. Money came fast, faster than he ever could have imagined, but he spent it responsibly and soon had a house for him and his family to call their own. Stability, something he'd never even thought to have, was attained and with it an easy life of short work days and plenty of leisure. For a short while at least, the fire in the souls of those like Zachary are not easily quenched and soon the long moment in which he forgot his grand plans ended and the thought of that project forever sitting unfinished in the back of his garage irked him.
His leisure time switched focus from family to craft, excusing himself with the simple explanation that there was simply a lot more work to be done than before. As the months ticked on he became more engrossed, each passing day brought on new ideas and each failure only drove him to a new level of fanaticism as he scrapped and started again. He was almost never home, only coming back to sleep at first, but even then he eventually just brought a cot to his shop and slept there most days.
All of his hard work paid off and the machine he simply named
Joy came into being and with her creation the second part of his 'grand plan' was put into action.
Joyride he called himself, more appropriate than even he knew, what time was once focused on building was now taken by action, ripping through the streets of Voltapolis listening in on a 'salvaged' police radio to combat crime wherever he could, taking off in a mad rush of dust and exhaust, leaving only confused and battered thugs to be found by the cops. Somehow, by some miracle or another, he managed to evade police forces every time, almost always escaping minutes before a squad car could respond.
He was living what he had dreamed nearly a decade before, but every night he returned home his wife asked him about fresh bruises and cuts he had acquired. Excusing them as 'accidents' could only work for so long though and after a month of heated arguments and silent stares Zachary came home one night to find his wife and children gone, only a slip of paper saying 'Gone To Parents' left. He hasn't seen them since.
One night in a rundown bar in the middle of the city he looked up from his drink and chanced upon the admiring eyes of a gentleman. He smiled, Zack smiled and for a very short moment his troubles were forgotten. They would part ways two days later and never see each other again. That moment though, however short it was, told opened up Zack's eyes to a world he never thought to explore and with it hope for a new future. He spotted a brochure looking for members to join a 'Volt Patrol' and thought to
Joy sitting in his garage, now confident that it was going to be his ticket to a fulfilled life.
Hexcode: FF0000
