Marcus Garrett: a.k.a. The Origami Man

Age: 21
Appearance: African-American, 6’0”, 178 lbs. (Cruiserweight)
Origin: Natural
Archetype: Scrapper (Martial Arts/Super Reflexes)
Level: 11 (12/14/05)

Backstory:
Marcus Garrett was born into middle-class poverty in 1984. His father, a meek, mild-mannered man, worked at a tire salon and his mother helped make ends meet as a clerical worker for a zinc plating firm. Growing up in Paragon’s Galaxy City was not the easiest task for Marcus. In 1995, he was accosted by some street toughs and robbed of his lunch money as he made his way to school. When he returned home, his face red from crying at his powerlessness, his father told him in his soft voice that next time he should run away.

The next day, the street toughs were waiting for him again. They did not corner Marcus, thinking the boy would be too terrified to run. Marcus saw, in a flash of insight, what would happen if he ran. The toughs would be surprised at first, but would overtake him and beat him savagely. He also saw what would happen if he fought back: the gang would easily overpower him and beat him also. He saw these scenes in vivid clarity and knew they were the truth. His last vision was of himself giving the gang members the money. In this vision, he was merely shoved to the pavement and allowed to go his way. He’d be hungry at lunch, but he’d be unhurt.

The three consequences stood out in his mind as clearly as the morning sun. He was not daydreaming, and he was not simply predicting: he was truly seeing the future. He knew, in that instant, the immediate consequences of his actions.

He decided, despite the consequences, to fight back.

When he woke up a few hours later to the gentle ministrations of a kindly passerby, he was badly bruised and beaten. It would be eight days before he could return to school, and three weeks before the bones fully healed. His story had alerted a local hero named Snow Flower who cleaned up the route Marcus walked each day. During the cleanup, Snow Flower discovered a drug ring that had been operating in secret behind one of the buildings on Marcus’ route. The busting of the drug ring made local headlines and Snow Flower credited Marcus’s initial resistance to the bullies as the beginning of the process. Snow Flower visited Marcus while he recuperated and listened to the boy’s story. Snow Flower, being not unacquainted with mysticism, believed Marcus and told him he had a special gift. The two became friends, Snow Flower stopping by the hospital each day and making small origami animals to delight the young man. He also inspired Marcus to join a gymnasium and take up boxing.

Over his mother’s protests, Marcus began the painstaking process of learning the Western martial art of boxing. His unpredictable prescience grew slowly more dependable, and Marcus was able, in a very limited way, to see the immediate future. This was an invaluable aid in his boxing career. Success bred success, and Marcus attracted the attention of local enthusiasts. In 1998, Marcus won the Regional Junior Boxing Championship and advanced to the state finals, where he lost in a heartbreaking decision.

The next year, he won State.

He continued to box throughout high school, and earned above average grades in the process. In 2000, Marcus was a sophomore in high school when he had what was the strongest vision of his life. His friends had just received their driver’s licenses and had also been drinking following a football game they had all attended together. Late at night, drunk, his friends all clambered into the 1998 Toyota they had driven in countless times, and Marcus saw them, and himself, dead on the highway, bodies mangled beyond recognition.

He did not enter the car with his friends and pleaded with them not to leave, but they did not heed his advice and drove off.

Marcus cried the next morning when he read the article in the newspaper. He saved the article and later made his first origami figure: a lotus flower, representing forgetfulness. He had hoped he flower would help him forget the pain of that night, but the memory of it still clings to him.

Now, in 2005, Marcus is taking night classes at Galaxy City Community College where he is studying history in the hopes of one day becoming a history teacher. Marcus’ boxing career earned him accolades in high school as he won the State championships three years running. Now, when he is not attending classes, he works as an instructor at the same gymnasium in which he first trained. He earns enough money to pay for his classes and his modest but neat one bedroom apartment in Galaxy.

A few weeks ago, Marcus learned that Snow Flower was paralyzed from the waist down in the Arachnos affair in the Rogue Islands. Marcus has been visiting the now-middle aged hero in ICU. Snow Flower watches from his bed as Marcus makes origami figures for his friend.

On November 17th of this year, Marcus was walking home from a late night sweeping up the gym when a gang of street toughs on Supradine accosted him for the money in his wallet. In another flash, Marcus saw the outcomes of various decisions he could make: he could outrun the toughs and escape to the safety of a police drone near the Yellow Line station; he could surrender his wallet and escape otherwise unscathed, or he could fight, and once again, lose.

This time, he managed to crawl to the hospital on his own power. The next morning, he registered with the Paragon City Hero Oversight Committee and took to the streets as The Origami Man.

Currently...
He’s been working more or less alone for a while, but then he met a young lady named Miss Nebula, whom he had known as Caitlin from a shared class at community college. They became fast friends, and have helped foil some of the minor plots of the thugs and gangsters in Paragon.

Recently, Marcus has found that despite his own innate sense of caution he is falling for Caitlin. He has had visions concerning her—some of them unsettling. It was in him to just walk away from her: to continue to live his somewhat lonely but uncomplicated life. But just as he could not walk away from those street toughs a month earlier, he found he could not just walk away form her. He knows that his life and hers are beginning to intertwine, and although this causes him no small amount of anxiety, it fulfills him even more.

He won’t say he’s in love, though. At least, not out loud.

Behind the Scenes: Marcus has a limited ability to see the future. As of now, his ability extends only a few seconds or perhaps minutes—the immediate or near-immediate consequences of an action. He cannot see the long-range consequences, at least, no better than anyone can. This is an aid in combat, as he can predict better than most what an opponent is going to do.

Marcus is a rather quiet, introverted young man, perhaps a bit too worried about the future and the past. Due to his ability, he can have difficulty surrendering to the present, and has a tendency to overanalyze. He is a kindhearted soul, but his kindheartedness does not extend to evil. He believes that everyone has choices, no matter what one’s upbringing is. Those who chose the wrong paths knew what they were doing and should not be “understood” as much as punished. He holds especial hatred for bullies and those who seek out the weak to harass.

Marcus is not so much shy around women as he is unsure. He is becoming slightly too reliant on his prescience and gets uncomfortable without it. He has had casual girlfriends in high school, but is currently unattached. He is not completely unaware of the superheroing world but his involvement directly in it is new. Marcus does enjoy some odd hobbies: origami, of course, but he is also a somewhat accomplished pianist. He favors the classics and the baroque period, as well as Ray Charles.