Vesuvius
Info
REAL NAME:
IDENTITY:
AFFILIATION:
REGISTERED?:
​RELATIVE AGE:
MARITAL STATUS:
Viniento "Vinny" Cerante
Known
Italian/Villain
No
mid 40s
Single
ALIAS(ES):
CURRENT TEAM:
FIRST APPEARANCE:
APPEARANCE DATE:
CREATED BY:
CREATION DATE:
RELATIONS:
Emilio Cerante (father, deceased)
Luigi Cerante (uncle, deceased)
Stephanie Cerante (aunt)
Theresa Cerante (Mother, deceased)
Vito Cerante (brother, deceased)
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History
Vinny Cerante was a handsome, charming boy from Naples, Italy. He was a bit of a street tough guy, one who bullied others to get them to do what he wanted them to do, including stealing things (small things; candy bars, wallets, etc.).
He also had quite the temper.
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When he got angry, everyone up and down the street could hear him roar. Many of the kids did what they could to stay on his good side, and as such, Vinny rarely lost his cool.
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Just short of his 13th birthday, Vinny wanted to steal some money/wallets to buy himself a nice birthday gift while he was visiting his aunt and uncle out on the island of Ischia. There, his Uncle Luigi (Cerante) and Aunt Stephanie (Cerante) ran the Spiaggia dei Maronti resort for the rich. Although his Uncle Luigi could have been rich, he chose charity rather than accumulated wealth. He was a good Catholic man who truly believed in maximum tithing and doing the right thing.
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That day, Vinny was caught stealing a wallet from, of all people, a vacationing police inspector from Naples. Vinny was hauled into the island's police station and placed behind bars. The police inspector, a big believer in 'scaring kids straight' told Vinny's aunt and uncle that he was going to be real hard on Vinny, keeping him overnight, and giving Vinny an unsettled feel about crime and prison, but all as an act to scare Vinny straight.
The inspector talked to two other prisoners there at the island prison that he'd get them out early if they helped him scare Vinny straight. They agreed. The plan was simple; threaten jail raping Vinny and get lightly 'rough' on Vinny by slapping him around a bit. After a night of getting the point across, the next morning, the uncle will show up and the inspector would release Vinny, but only after the inspector told Vinny that his uncle paid Vinny's release with his last Euro and that his uncle had and that he was now broke and would need help the rest of the summer from Vinny to help earn the lost money back.
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It was a good plan that sadly went off the skids to a massive degree.
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Once the two hoods were put into the cell with Vinny, the convicts started in on the jail rape theme, pushing Vinny around, slapping him a couple of times, getting Vinny scared and upset. Vinny was so scared, he wet his pants. The convicts began laughing uncontrollably at Vinny. Furiously, Vinny told them to shut up, to which one of the convicts slapped Vinny in the back of the head and told him he was going to be a great 'prison bitch' for all the prisoners.
Vinny's eyes literally erupted in flames.
With that, an earthquake began to rumble, causing the jail house to sway. The rumbling and shaking was so bad, everyone lost the footing and fell over. One of the convicts attempted to cover Vinny from falling debris from the ceiling, but instead, Vinny thought he was being attacked to be raped. As such Vinny grabbed the convict; flames erupted from Vinny's arms, and in less that a second, the convict was turned into ash. The other convict yelled for the guard, but Vinny turned him into ash as well. At this point, the earthquake grew stronger; Vinny's body erupted in flame, melting the prison cell bars and combusting the building all around him. Any police that entered the room were instantly incinerated.
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That's when the center of the island erupted like a volcano.
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Lava and ash flew for miles. Plumes of smoke and pyroclastic materials erupted out from the new volcano. The island started breaking up. The entire shoreline of the island dropped down into the sea by over 100 feet. Ash thickened the air so heavily, the fleeing populace of the island couldn't breathe.
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All except Vinny.
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Vinny stood there where the prison and police station once was as fire, lava and smoke shot out of the ground all about him. Vinny stood there, angry, enraged and furious with the world. He didn't care what happened to people anymore. As far as he was concerned, they should all die.
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That's when the ground finally gave out underneath Vinny and he got blasted out to sea. He resurfaced, unconscious, on a large floating pumice rock. When Vinny was thrown from the island, the earthquakes stopped and the volcano instantly died. Altogether, over 400 lives were lost that day on Isola d'Ischia. A massive, steaming yet now inactive volcano now smoldered where a hill once was. No one knew the connection between Vinny and the earthquake and volcano...at least, none that were alive.
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Vinny was found by the Italian Navy and taken to the hospital in Naples. There, he laid in a coma for over a month before he awoke. His family was there with him, including his Aunt Stephanie from Isola d'Ischia...but not his uncle. The aunt told Vinny about the 'scared straight' plan the (now dead) police inspector was trying to do to help straighten out Vinny's bad behavior. As it was, when Uncle Luigi felt the earthquakes, he ran to the police station, where he was last seen falling into a crevice on the street before the police station, reported as dead days later.
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Vinny was horrified and angry at what they did to him. He told them everything that happened and the HE was the cause of the volcano and earthquakes. When his parents, Emilio and Teresa, tried to calm Vinny down stating, he was delusional, the earthquakes started again, with Vinny bursting into flame before them. He screamed at them, telling them it was THEIR fault, not his, for what happened.
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That's when a chute of lava shot through the hospital floor in front of Vinny and killed his now incinerated family. Vinny walked out the front of the hospital with a following of cracked concrete and pavement behind him, lava oozing out the cracks.
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That's when the superhero Major Invader showed up. He shot Vinny with a powerful stun cannon, knocking Vinny unconscious (and 20 feet into a solid concrete wall). Again, once Vinny went unconscious, the earthquakes and volcanic activity stopped cold.
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Vinny, whose skin was now orange and his hair a spiky blonde style, was kept in a remote Atlantic Ocean prison on the island of Furma of the Cape Verde islands for the next six years under heavy sedation. The international courts deemed him a mass murderer, but were unable to come to a decision of his death.
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After those six years, the Soltan Star Empire invaded Earth. As a result, million lost their lives in the ensuring attacks. The doctors treating Vinny on Furma died enroute to Furma, and thus, no new sedation drugs came to island. a month into the invasion, Vinny awoke. Furious at his situation, one woman in the prison staff told him of the alien invasion. Even more angry (more earthquakes and pyroclastic events ensuing) about the aliens, he calmed down and asked how to leave the island and get to the aliens, otherwise he'd blow up the island they were on himself. They put him on the only helicopter on the island and flew him to Dakar, Senegal. There, Vinny, now calling himself Vesuvius, waded through thousands of Soltan troops and turned them to ash. They threw every weapon they had against him and he only got madder and more dangerous. Sadly, in the wake of his 'Soltan Crusade', he decimated city after city, town after town in his wake. Dakar itself was left a smoldering disaster area, uninhabitable for the next 10 years.
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Eventually, Vesuvius was conquered. The Soltans put him in stasis and sent him to their mothership's prison where he was incarcerated until a band of heroes, in August 2000, attacked the mothership in orbit and released Vesuvius from his shackles, allowing Vesuvius to do what he did all too well - DESTROY.
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The Mothership crash landed in the Sahara Desert as a result of the massive damage Vesuvius did. Luckily, Vesuvius was knocked out and whisked away by the heroes, where he was imprisoned once again on the island of Furma in the Cape Verde island chain. This time, however, the heroes took the stasis device that was used on Vesuvius on the mothership and used that same tech to imprison and subdue Vesuvius.
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Over the next dozen or so years, the tale of Vesuvius grew, with tales of his awesome power and his 'heroism' at destroying the mother ship and 'dying' in the resulting crash, sacrificing himself for the people of Earth...outright lies, but it helped fill in the intel holes nicely regarding Vesuvius. Sadly, that didn't satiate an evil man called Mad Halloween Jack, leader of the Masters of Maleficence. Jack wanted Vesuvius' power...badly. In time, Jack found out that not only was Vesuvius alive, he knew where he was being held.
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Mad Halloween Jack teleported into Furma's prison complex, killed several guards, and then raised the same guards from the dead as zombies and forced them to fight the prison's security forces. Jack sauntered down the prison hallways and elevators until he found Vesuvius' cell on the 20th sub-level basement floor. Jack ported in, took Vesuvius and the stasis equipment and ported back to one of the Masters of Maleficence's remote Pacific Ocean bases.
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There, Mad Halloween Jack and his fellow teammates woke Vesuvius and placed a compliance spell on him; a spell that had to be redone every two days at the earliest. With that, Vesuvius was more cooperative and complied with Jack and his evil associates. Vesuvius still had his angry and in-your-face personality, but this time, Jack was able to keep Vesuvius' powers in check by placing a miniaturized stasis field in Vesuvius large belt, thereby being able to remotely shut Vesuvius down if he got out of control.
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Over the next few years, Vesuvius was used for several attempts at world domination, but sadly, was always stopped or rendered unconscious during the battle. That's not saying he still did damage on a massive scale due to his actions. Each time Vesuvius got incarcerated, Mad Halloween Jack would rescue Vesuvius, instill the compliance spell on him and resume their evil plots once again.
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Today, Vesuvius is lodged on a remote island off of Greenland in an old Soviet bunker. There, he has all the comforts he wants and a teleporter that can bring him to one of several other locations that the Masters of Maleficence are based out of.
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Vesuvius is a world-devastatingly dangerous villain with a fiery temper being controlled by want-to-be world conquerors. If he ever gets free of the compliance spell and the stasis field in his belt, the global damage he could do may well decimate all life on Earth...if not controlled or left in check.
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Powers
Power Origin: Mutant
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Vulcanism Control
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Has the unearthly power to control earthquakes, lava and pyroclastic events within a 2 mile range.
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Once activated, Vesuvius can shut it down either through willpower or being knocked unconscious (or killed).
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Earthquakes of amazing power occur within a 1 mile range.
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Amazing amounts of Lava can be released/flowed up through cracks as a result of geological shifts and cracks due to the earthquakes; lava isn't 'controlled' so much as 'motivated' to rise and explode somewhere relative to his desires with 20% accuracy.
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Pyroclastic events of amazingly super-heated ash, rock, pumice, and nodules can be forced to erupt within a 2 mile range, usually directly associated with a volcanic event.
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Volcanoes can erupt anywhere within 2 miles of his location, causing fantastic damage over time.
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"Going Vesuvius"
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When severely angered, Vesuvius will spend the next 20+ seconds ramping up his power to perform seven severe actions involving earthquakes, igniting area, lava bursts, pyroclastic events and usually a volcano erupting from the ground with unearthly levels of damage, while also doubling the damage rates to all the other actions, including those that do damage over time.
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While doing this, he has to stand still or loose control and have the effects drop down to regular power levels.
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Ignite Area
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Can create a thermal patch in a 10' x 10' area producing an incredibly hot/thermal damage rate to anyone or anything in the area over time; this also affect adjacent areas at an excellent rate and areas adjacent to that at typical, then feeble, damage rates.
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Fire Aura
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Surrounded by fantastic fiery aura that protects against everything except mental and magical attacks.
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Can be stretched out to protect others (but rarely ever does that) within 10 feet of his location.
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Fire Blasts/Bolts
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Can fire blasts of amazing thermal and/or plasmatic energy up to 100 feet away.
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Thermal Hover
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Can use thermal updrafts to hover/levitate into the air and move at a max of 10 mph.
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Max altitude unknown.
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Anyone below or in the path of his thermal updraft will receive typical heat damage.
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VULNERABILITY:
Amazing levels of water or cold being poured onto him can cause a massive uncontrolled pyroclastic event on his body, causing him unearthly damage with slam and stun results.
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Equipment
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Stasis Field Belt
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Self-contained unearthly neural paralysis system designed to knock out and paralyze Vesuvius temporarily for up to 30 minutes.
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Battery must be changed out once a year.
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Only affects Vesuvius; no other being or construct.
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Communicator (Solid State)
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Fantastic level material; will melt if Vesuvius goes 'Vesuvius'.
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Allows for communications within 10 miles range.
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Worn in ear.
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Talents
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Theft (Professional)
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Vulcanism (Professional)
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Marksmanship (Proficient)
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Prisons (Proficient)
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