Star City sorta giveaway (new link to pickup page)
Frankie Maxwell AKA Maxtor
** note that this story takes place in Primal Earth's Paragon City setting and moves to Twoarth; Additional CIS below **
With a faintly alien looking face but a charming smile none the less, Frankie always greets his classmates cheerfully. No one knows how he manages this, as he was abandoned as a youth by his family. Having been born mutated, obviously, placed him in a category at any adoption clinic that most folks wouldn't touch.
But thankfully, the Maxwell clan stepped in to help. A family of fairly well to do fifth-generation American business owners, the Maxwells of late have noticed a terrifying trend among their peers. The rich keep ignoring the obvious needs of the poor and unwanted, while the poor seem to be able to keep their heads above water only by resorting to horrible means. Selling children, abandoning them, working sex shops - these kinds of things are what offended Maria and Tony Maxwell the most. When they began their work to clean up the ghettos near their family mansion, at first they were looked upon as 'a bunch of PC loonies with too much money for their own good' - but soon the families that lived in those run down apartments learned that the Maxwells had big hearts and bigger checkbooks.
While some families tried to take advantage of their generosity, in general the folks being helped are grateful and happy. Secure, in their now-well-tended complexes. However there are always kids that slip through the cracks, and Frankie was one of them.
His birth family left no information with him, merely depositing him on a park bench at the age of four, and vanishing into the night. Whether they lived in the neighborhood was unknown - many people lived transiently there. Frankie was silent and sullen for weeks but when the Maxwells arrived to see him - it was night and day. His attitude changed. He offered his name immediately, and they offered immediately to legally adopt him. Without children of their own, Maria and Tony were ready for the challenge and had love in their hearts waiting for a chance like this.
They didn't disappoint.
Frankie knows that he's adopted - who could spot any similarities between he and his adoptive parents anyway? But he also knows that he and his adopted sister and brother - both younger than he by six or more years - are well loved and appreciated.
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By the time Frankie was able to begin using any of his obviously innate powers, the Maxwell mansion was known for its high quality tutoring and personal attention. Since he was easily targeted by bullies for his appearance in school he was rarely seen even in a private school. He's an average student, his charm and personality are where he truly shines. His siblings are, let's be blunt, far more intelligent than he is. But he's no slouch, merely not academic enough to pursue a college career.
Fortunately for him and his siblings, there's Paragon Special.
Because about the time he discovered 'girls' .... he also discovered this:
Going through clothing at an astonishing rate, Frankie would rather just wear a tanktop and shorts - but that's not quite polite enough for school. Developed for people just like him, soon enough that he benefitted from it, was a fabric that almost literally grows back after being ripped. He now enjoys a proper wardrobe as well as the ability to slice and dice!
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Frankie's powers are very physical, and he enjoys it that way. Punching two feet of solid mutant spine into an invading Rikti drone means a lot to him - it means he will have a purpose when he's out of school.
But for now, he's still quite young. As a Freshman he's got 3 full more years ahead of him after this, and he intends to gain the most out of his workouts.
** 2026 Addendum to make some sense of this - While he knew that his family and the original school he attended for heroics was on the east coast in Paragon City, they'd been in talks with Portal Corp for a while. And that portal they all went through deposited them ... somewhere rather different indeed. While Frankie was pretty confident in Paragon itself, what with all the wild nonhumans and mages and aliens, this 'Crescent City' on a place they called 'Twoarth' was something else.
They got hooked up with not only a pile of instructors that knew exactly how to deal with young people experiencing powers and mutations for the first time, but ... dragons. Right there at the school! He and the other PSSP kids were able to flex their unique abilities in their own time, and on their own class schedules. What about those weird dragon things? Why, he'd certainly like to see them up close and personal. There's nothing more thrilling to him than the thought that these beautiful and dangerous creatures exist. He's not afraid of heights, and he knows the city like the back of his dark, spiney hand... He could fly overhead! He could ... well, he could do real heroic things, from the back of an equally heroic dragon, now couldn't he? And he could!
When the call went out for specific dragon clutches out there in the multiverse, Frankie was sent to a place called Star City. Very pretty dragons came from their eggs on this space station, marked with face splashes, boots and stripes on their legs, bicolor body and wings... the lot! While he was there he did have to catch up on the hows and whats of dragon anatomy, the types of them that existed, and the general idea of where they each came from. He had learned that some worlds had color-coded ranks, sizing, and gendering. Others just threw everything they had into powers and magic, and yet more of them could even shapeshift or travel the multiverse without a machine!
He and his gorgeous shiny bronze and white Yyliart returned to Carramba to participate in more dragon-centric classes. They would get back to Paragon when they were needed, but practice and thrive on Twoarth where dragons were much more common.
Though Frankie didn't quite understand the process, he found himself paired up with a strong looking and beautifully marked dragon! As confident as he, and as entertainingly charming at times, Yyliart and Frankie have been learning to team up against crime in the big city.
"Hey, Yyliart!" Frankie called from the roof, and the bronze spun in the air to greet his humannnnish partner.
Yes my friend! Ride with me!
With that in mind, Frankie glanced at the loose gravely rooftop tiles, dug in with his feet, and bolted to the side of the building. Flying off - without any possible hint of levitation - he drifted in the air for a split second before the smooth skin of the dragon appeared directly below him. Though they hadn't practiced that very often, the move was spectacular, indeed. He hooked his knees over the dragon's strong wing shoulders, and leaned down over the smooth bronze neck.
"There's crime out there, we're going to go find it!"
**You're going to find it and report back here immediately!** Called the strong mental voice of the Freshman councilor, **You're going to get grounded otherwise!**
Both dragon and spiney rider sighed, "yes, sir..."
--
By the time he was in his senior year at CHS, and Yyliart was growing into a strong, medium sized dragon, they encountered a flock of unusually colored draca, though how in the world they'd gotten to Crescent City? There were quite a few of them, and nearly everyone in the heroic group he'd been training with attracted one. A green and gold one with little red-brown gloves appeared to be very interested in flying around Yyliart, even going so far as to perch on his red muzzle and give off a screeching cry when the dragon attempted to snap him out of the sky. Of course it was all in fun, Yyliart gave off the feeling to his rider, that he was now going to learn how to be just as speedy as any tiny bird or flitter!
"That noise was very bird-like," someone commented, "like a hawk claiming territory."
That inspired Frankie to name the draca 'Hawk', which might or might not come back to bite him...
(( More Info Below!! ))
