Colin Wallis

<infobox> <title source="name"><default>Colin Wallis</default></title>

<image source="Image"></image> <image source="image"></image> <group><header>Basic Information</header> <label>Civilian Name</label> <label>Aliases</label> <label>Gender</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Death</label> <label>Age</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Post-timeskip</label> <label>Ward start</label> <label>Relations</label> <label>Family</label></group> <group><header>Professional Status</header> <label>Occupation</label> <label>Classification</label> <label>Unique Features</label> <label>Alignment</label>

<label>Status</label><format>

Alive

</format>

<label>Location</label> <label>Teams</label> <label>Previous Team(s)</label> <label>Base of Operations</label></group> <group><header>First Appearance</header> <label>Worm Debut</label> <label>Ward Debut</label></group> </infobox>

Colin Wallis was the leader of Brockton Bay's Protectorate. Colin - as Armsmaster - acted as the commanding officer of Protectorate East-North-East until a series of incidents take place during and after Leviathan's attack on the city. Later, Colin is critically wounded by the Slaughterhouse Nine and takes on a new superhero identity as a consequence: Defiant.

Personality

Colin is exemplified by a stern and uncompromising personality, one which frequently serves as a source of friction between him and the people around him - including professional subordinates. Colin sees himself as being part of a war; a soldier of law and order fighting against the chaos of supervillains <ref name=":0">"Worm" Web Serial, Interlude 16 (Defiant)</ref>. Because of this, he can be rude and abrupt to people who aren't on 'his side'.

Colin is a man who wants to be self-reliant at all times and to excel at everything he does, pushing himself to his absolute limit to a point that might be considered obsessive. He prided himself on this spartan existence which allowed him to take up any job and perform any role the Protectorate required of him <ref>"Worm" Web Serial, Interlude 24 II (Aftermath)</ref>. He deliberately went without a family, friends or a personal life in order to be that much better at his life as a cape and to not give any enemies additional ammo to use against him <ref>"Worm" Web Serial, Interlude 11d</ref>. In fact, until he developed a relationship with Dragon, he had no personal life to speak of whatsoever. Any time not spent on his official duties was spent training or working on his equipment. Despite his powerful drive to be a heroic cape, Colin's pride and anger can get the better of him, leading him to make errors in judgement or exhibit elements of narcissism. Along those lines, Colin also has difficulties with understanding people.

His relationship with Dragon (and his new identity as Defiant) leads Colin to be slightly less stern and belligerent, although he still exhibits many of the same traits and habits that make him difficult for most people to deal with for an extended period. As Taylor puts it, Dragon is the only person on the planet who can stand him for more than ten minutes at a time <ref>"Worm" Web Serial, Sting 26.4</ref>.

Description

Colin is a tall man in his late twenties or early thirties by Taylor's reckoning <ref name=":1">"Worm" Web Serial, Gestation 1.6</ref>. He has short, cropped brown hair <ref>"Worm" Web Serial, Interlude 7 (Hannah/Miss Militia)</ref>.

As Armsmaster:

Armsmaster's costume consists of a suit midnight-blue power armor with silver highlights and a visor that covers his eyes and nose<ref name=":1" />. He wears a neatly trimmed beard. He wields his personally designed and crafted Halberd weapon system which can shift into various weapons, cut through most metal, wreathe the blade in plasma, project electro-magnetic pulses and act as a grappling hook, among many other tools and features. His helmet includes a lie detector and a computer program that allows him to predict enemy behaviour - although these tools are not infallible. He also has a motorcycle.

As Defiant:

Defiant's costume consists of an advanced, heavy-duty suit of power armor which is forest green and gold in colouration. Much of the armor is decorated in a styling that evokes dragons - such as frills or wings - along the green portions. His helmet, which obscures his whole face, resembles a high-tech knight's helm and the points where the visor meets the rest of the helmet are shaped like a dragon's wing. Much like Armsmaster, he wields a long polearm, although this one is a two-pronged spear as opposed to a halberd and is much larger, able to extend itself up to fifteen feet in length. The spear can deploy a number of different blades and tools, similar to Armsmaster's Halberd and is etched with a design like a lizard's skull in the spearhead. Much of this armor is obviously intended to invoke a comparison with his superhero partner, Dragon, whom wears a similar set.

As Defiant, he has numerous cybernetic enhancements throughout his body and even inside of his brain. These include at least one prosthetic eye, a prosthetic leg, and a prosthetic arm to replace the one he lost fighting Leviathan (it is unclear whether more than one each of his arms and legs are cybernetic replacements; see trivia). This level of cybernetic augmentation allows Dragon to see what he sees and allows them both to communicate with each other privately. His scalp is covered in thin, neat surgical scars and he keeps his dark hair and beard shaved close. The level of cybernetic modification means he only has fifteen minutes of 'down time' each day, with six of those fifteen being for sleep. His cybernetic leg also mounts a nanomachine thorn generator<ref name=":0" />.

He usually has access to a personalised Dragon craft which he pilots.

Powers

Collin is a Tinker that specializes in miniaturization and efficiency. He uses this power to create ridiculously efficient technological devices which he outfits into his suits of armor or into his weapons.

His equipment has demonstrated, or has been said to have, the following features:

[To be filled out]

Immediately before Leviathan attacks Brockton Bay, he creates a modification for his Halberd which wreathes the blade in a cloud of nano-machines, allowing it to cut through anything by destroying molecular bonds.

History:

Gestation:

After pumping Lung full of tranquillizers and welding a steel cage around him, Colin used his Halberd's grappling hook to climb the building and reach Skitter. He confirmed that she wasn't going to attack him before talking about what had happened that night as well as the consequences to her if she took the credit for taking Lung down. Skitter asked him to keep her involvement secret and they parted ways.

Colin then took Lung back to the PHQ for holding until the villain's trial by teleconference. As Skitter's bugs had injected Lung with a near-lethal dose of poisons that Lung couldn't regenerate while tranquillized, Armsmaster got in a lot of trouble. He lost command of his team for two days, had his Halberd and power armor confiscated and taken apart for inspection, and was interrogated.

Agitation:

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Colin met with Skitter. He wanted her to come back to the Protectorate Headquarters and tell them what she had learned about the Undersiders, but she wanted to continue so she could learn who was backing them. He quickly figured out that the reason she couldn't tell him what she had learned was because of Tattletale before warning her about what she was doing and telling her it was foolish. He finished by telling her that she had better tell him everything the next time they met and that he wouldn't condone her actions. After the Undersiders robbed the Brockton Bay Central Bank, Armsmaster met with the Wards. He looked at the information that they were compiling about the Undersiders before noting that Tattletale's section was nearly empty. He wanted Panacea to tell them what she had observed about the villain's powers, but the younger hero hadn't gotten her thoughts into order yet.

Tangle

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Colin was present alongside the rest of his team at the Forsberg Gallery when the Undersiders hit it. He disabled the containment foam sprayer that Skitter had acquired with an electromagnetic pulse before doing the same to Grue's and Tattletale's. He ordered Bitch to call off her dog before explaining that he had studied the Undersiders' powers. Telling them that it was over, he then used his halberd to kill all of Skitter's insects within a fifteen foot range before demanding that they surrender. After Tattletale figured out what he was doing and that he has set things up, he pointed his weapon at her and took her down. He convinced Grue to drop his darkness and for Skitter to get rid of her bugs. He then told Miss Millita to use a less lethal weapon before moving over to Skitter before she brought her bugs down on him. He attempted to use his halberd to kill them again, but she grabbed onto the pole and got in the way. After Grue blanketed the room in darkness, he tried to kill Skitter's bugs again but it didn't work. He clawed at the bugs around his mouth and nose, headed to the opposite side of the darkness cloud, killed Skitter's bugs, and moved on to deal with Bitch's charging dogs.

Buzz

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Extermination:

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Armsmaster attempts to kill Leviathan in a one-on-one duel and fails. Leviathan tears off one of his arms in the process. At the end of this arc, Armsmaster is accused of letting villains such as Kaiser due in order to arrange his duel, perhaps even deliberately putting them in harm's way. Without any humility, Armsmaster states that he did everything he did for the greater good and that it was the most effective way of ensuring a bright future for Brockton Bay. In response, Armsmaster outs Skitter as a mole in the Undersiders.

Sentinel:

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Parasite:

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In the interlude of this arc, it is revealed that Colin has been kept under house arrest on the second-highest floor of the Brockton Bay Protectorate Headquarters with regular check-ups from Dragon. It has not been kind to him - Colin is tired and he has lost weight - although he is still able to work on many of his projects and has access to some of his equipment, such as his nano-disintergration blade. He has made no attempts to escape, despite the fact that he would be able to. When Dragon asks him about recent events, he expresses regret and acknowledges the fact that he broke the Endbringer truce during Leviathan's attack.

Infestation:

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Still under house arrest, Colin is visited by a member of the Slaughterhouse Nine - Mannequin. Mannequin is there to recruit Colin for the Slaughterhouse Nine, insinuating that he is no different from anyone in their villain group. This enrages Colin who, despite warnings and pleading from Dragon, deliberately provokes Mannequin by calling him out on his actions, on how he went from being Alan Gramme to Mannequin as a result of the death of his family. Mannequin promptly stabs Colin in the shoulder, several times in his abdomen and then slashes him across the face, blinding and disfiguring him. Despite his disintegration knife, Colin lacks the physical strength to overpower his opponent. As Colin falls into unconsciousness, Mannequin escapes. Some time later, Colin wakes up in the PHQ under Dragon's care, who informs him that he had nine heart failures on the operating table, and finds out that some of the damage he incurred from Mannequin has been repaired with prosthetics, particularly his face and eye. Dragon sternly admonishes him, calling his display with Mannequin the "stupidest fucking thing I've ever seen" but then reveals her nature as an AI.

Plague:

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Snare:

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Prey:

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Colony:

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In the Colony interlude, Dragon - with a new android body - arrives with the 'new hero' Defiant as her partner and explains her new mission to the assembled capes - hunting down the Slaughterhouse Nine. Thanks to Colin's body language, Triumph immediately notices that it is Armsmaster under the armor and the implication is that Director Piggot and the rest of the Protectorate capes are aware of this fact as well, but no one is willing to mention it. Defiant reveals that he has replaced his internal organs with artificial equivalents, including parts of his brain as well, leaving him only fifteen minutes of 'down time' per day. It is also revealed that Defiant has made modifications to Dragon's programming to allow her to control a multitude of her suits at once.

Monarch:

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Migration:

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Armsmaster is present during the Endbringer attack during this arc.

Queen:

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Scourge:

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Chrysalis:

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In 20.04, Dragon and Defiant arrive at Arcadia High school in a pair of Dragon suits in order to apprehend Taylor, under orders of the PRT. Defiant counters her insects with his spear and defends Dragon as she verbally spars with Taylor. Defiant also apologizes to Taylor, admitting that he should have attempted to compromise with her and he regrets how he handled things with her. He is even willing to officially admit culpability in how Taylor became who she is. When Skitter asks why they have come to arrest her in a public place - outing her cape identity in the process - Defiant informs her that Dinah told them it was their best chance of apprehending her. Taylor refuses to go with them and uses her fellow students as an escape method. Defiant is dogpiled by many of them, preventing him from grabbing Skitter. When Dragon is forced to attempt to apprehend Skitter, Defiant makes a crude adjustment to her programming that prevents her from pursuing Skitter further, although he does not feel the risk of losing Dragon is worth Taylor's freedom. While Skitter escapes, Defiant embraces Dragon's malfunctioning android body. In the interlude, it is made clear that Director Piggot knows who Defiant really is and, likely, so does Director Tagg. Piggot reminds Defiant that he is on a strict probation, with terms that he personally agreed to. As Dragon is unable to speak (although can possibly still communicate with him thanks to his cybernetic implants), Defiant promptly makes the demand that the Protectorate needs to clean house and eliminate any sign of Cauldron influence. When the Director refuses, Defiant claims that he and Dragon will simply leave then. In response, Alexandria indicates that will hand over much of Dragon's responsibilities to Saint. Because of this, Defiant and Dragon agree to a compromise: after the next Endbringer attack, the PRT will clean house.

Imago:

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Cell:

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Drone:

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Crushed:

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In Chevalier's interlude, he acknowledges Colin as an old friend.

Scarab:

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Sting:

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Following Dragon's death at Saint's hands, Defiant is immediately aware of who the culprit is. He swears to kill Saint for what he has done. Contacted by Weaver, Defiant informs her that the Azazel suits have been 'compromised' and that they are now unreliable. Defiant is so distraught by the loss of Dragon that he thanks Weaver at the end of his conversation with her, something which she acknowledges is very uncharacteristic.

Extinction:

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Cockroaches:

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Venon:

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Speck:

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During the Golden Morning, Defiant is the one to activate the Tinker device that finally kills Scion.

Teneral

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In his epilogue, on an alternate Earth, in a town that the locals call Dracheheim, Colin has been attempting to restore Dragon's programming to a state before Teacher's modifications. He is not having much success, although his obsessive drive to achieve his goal has led him to stop shaving and cease maintaining his cybernetic limbs and other components, leaving him unable to walk without his power armor. He is even ignoring much of his actual relationship with Dragon - for example, playing Ten by Ten - in order to have more time to analyze her code, unwilling to accept that the alterations Teacher made to her may not be fixable. When Dragon raises the possibility of 'making' a kid, Colin mentions that he has never seen himself as a father and is worried that he would be a poor one. Colin asks Dragon if she is willing to give up being a superhero, if she is willing to build a house with him. Dragon is unwilling to admit that she no longer wants to be a hero and, so, Colin asks for one more night to attempt to repair her, although he tells her that every alteration he has made to her code has come at a cost. Dragon allows it. As she leaves to make dinner, Colin says that he loves her, and gives her the name Tess Theresa Richter. However, as Colin goes to complete his work, he is aware of the cost. He can free Dragon through the use of his Pandora AI - a copy of Dragon's earlier personality and code, although it is the Dragon who never had a relationship with him, from just prior to her Interlude; Dragon when she only knew Armsmaster. He is also aware that such an alteration would compel Dragon to fight him, forced by Teacher's code. Still, he goes ahead with his plan, willing to grant Dragon her freedom at the cost of his relationship with her. In order to stop Pandora from altering Teacher's code, Dragon attacks him, heavily damaging his Pendragon II craft and crushing his legs as he attempts to escape from the suit. Pandora uploads herself into Defiant's cybernetic systems and manages to cure Dragon of Teacher's code. Colin, however, is distraught by everything that has transpired, feeling as if he has betrayed Dragon's trust in him. When Dragon hugs him, however, he acts as if he'll never let go.

Trivia:

• In her interlude, Dragon notes that she and Colin have the same taste in movies and television shows.
• Prior to his actions during Leviathan's attack, Taylor indicates that the fallout from Lung's poisoning was the first blemish on Armsmaster's record.
• There are Armsmaster action figures (with interchangeable Halberd parts!) and clothing that features his personal symbol.
• In Miss Militia's interlude, Colin remarks that he would "give [his] left foot" for Miss Militia's no-sleeping perk. As Defiant, Colin needs almost no sleep and possesses at least one cybernetic leg.
• The name of Defiant's armored dragon-craft suit, the Pendragon, roughly translates to "head dragon" or "chief dragon". The Uther, which he pilots earlier in the story, shares its etymology along a similar line.
• Colin has fought all three Endbringers. The Simurgh in Madison, Leviathan in Brockton Bay and Behemoth in New Delhi.
• In Fortuna's interlude, a version of Colin is glimpsed in an alternate reality. There, he is known as Arsenal. He wields a gisarme and works closely with that reality's version of Richter.
• With the exception of Dragon, Miss Militia and Chevalier are the only two people who seem to view Colin as a friend.
• During the Drone arc, Defiant states that he has officially retracted his statements calling Skitter a manipulator and a liar.
• In the Blasto interlude, Bonesaw points out that Defiant's spear makes use of some of Mannequin's techniques - a callback to Mannequin's comment that he and Colin aren't too different.
• It appears that Defiant may be upgrading his body with further cybernetic modifications as the story progresses. While he initially only has one cybernetic eye, by the epilogue both of his eyes are apparently prosthetics. Similarly, during his interlude, Defiant works at further integrating cybernetic components into his calf - which is organic at that point - much to Dragon's disapproval.
• Saint refers to Defiant as 'the cyborg', perhaps indicating that his level of prosthetic integration is rare, if not completely unheard of, on Earth Bet.

Quotes:

• “You don’t even speak English, do you? Or you’d know what I was saying, you’d know I already won. The others helped, slowing you down, stopping the waves. But this victory, this killing blow? It’s going to be mine.” - Armsmaster, to Leviathan
• "I'm inclined towards tunnel vision." - Defiant, to Saint.
• "I’m about to put my foot in my mouth. Can I call in a ‘Colin is an doofus’ chit in advance?” - Colin, to Dragon.

References:

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