BACKSTORY
Cordon was born in the small town of Hooks Texas. His father was an Army Colonel who was base Commander at Red River Army Depot when it was a base. Until 10 years old, when his father died during a training exercise, he lived in regimented and orderly household. His mother worked as a bank teller and raised him on her own until she died when he was 17 of breast cancer. He moved to a local Baptist Orphanage for his last year of High School. He in a fit of rage used a baseball bat on a teacher's car because he threatened to fail him. He had to complete his senior year in alternative school. During his trial, he opted to join the military to avoid jail time and to have the matter dropped for his vandalism charge. He became a member of the Marines and his aptitude for combat earned him a space in Marine Recon. He would work his way up to Gunnery Sergeant.
He was placed in charge of training marines at Pensacola Naval Air Station. There he met and married Natalie Sarpova. She was one of the first Top Gun female pilots and extremely gifted. She was on track to become one of the best pilots the Navy ever produced. He loved her so much, and her presence in his life was everything to him.
Then the unthinkable happened. While stationed on an aircraft carrier, her commanding officer sexually assaulted her. She reported the assault but that resulted in her career being methodically disassembled until she was completely humiliated. Cordon tried so hard to be there for her, but he couldn’t seem to do anything to help her. But he felt they could get through until one day Cordon’s life would effectively end in tragedy. When it became clear that this man got away with sexually assaulting her and then her career was destroyed, she decided to end it all. She put on her dress uniform and shot herself in the head. Cordon found her body and was destroyed. He entered a Feuge state walked into her commanding officer’s office and beat him to death with the stapler on his desk.
The trial was quick. Despite people supporting him that knew the situation, and multiple expert witnesses that stated he was not mentally competent at the time of the crime, he was quickly convicted and sentenced to death by lethal injection.
For half a decade he was on death row, as many groups petitioned and fought for his freedom. Shortly before the emergence of supers became known, his day of execution arrived. He was hooked up the machine and when the plungers dropped he was dead within minutes. He was pronounced dead and sent to the morgue.
The next morning he shot up startled covered in only a sheet. A Medical Examiner found him and immediately had him examined. He was in perfect condition and very much alive. It garnered national attention and a rapid course of court cases determined that he couldn’t be executed for the same crime twice. He was dead and it was documented. Whatever mistake in dosage or in pronouncement, it was not the result of anything that Cordon did. He had received his punishment. So the Marines released him with a dishonorable discharge.
What no one knew is that Cordon was more disappointed than anyone. He wanted death. He did not want to live in the world without Natalie. The only other thing he wanted he got in the form of every strike with that stapler, and the gruesome and painful death of the man who took Natalie from him.
After his discharge life was hard. He turned to booze and pills to kill the pain. His somewhat national infamous celebrity status combined with his dishonorable discharge made it hard to find work. He was limited to a few construction jobs. Life became an endless cycle of existential pain. He never had the guts to commit suicide. So he just existed and hurt with intermittent relief of being high and/or blackout drunk. He had no idea what he had become but that would soon change.
Corden moved to NYC. Natalie’s Family lived there and they took good care of him during the entire ordeal. He wanted to help him any way he could. He also lived with his Uncle Stanley. He was his favorite uncle and when Corden got out he found out Stanley had Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer. Corden took care of him the last 2 months of his life. When he passed he found out Stanley had left him the remnant agreement for his rent controlled apartment. This gave Corden affordable housing in NYC.
He had heard the news reports of people developing super abilities. He never really paid them much mind nor did he piece together the implications to his situation. After an exceptionally long day of labor he stopped by the KwikMart close to his apartment to buy his nightly case of beer and gallon of whiskey, and it is on this fateful night that the course of his life would be altered yet again.
Gerald just celebrated his 2nd Anniversary as a KwikMart employee. He had to focus on the little things. His screenplay was taking longer than it should have, but he was getting close to finishing it and once the folks in Hollywood saw his talent, he would be rich enough to leave this life of menial work behind him. Just as he completed that thought the bell on the door rang. It was his regular there to pick up his nightly case of beer and gallon of cheap generic whiskey in a plastic bottle. He waved at him and the regular nodded back as headed to back to the beer and liquor. This regular never spoke. He always brought his items, got his total and paid. He wasn’t rude, just not a talker. Gerald’s eyes followed him until his attention turned to the door as he heard the bell again. Through the door came a man in a ski mask who quickly approached the counter and shoved a sawed off shotgun into Gerald’s face.
“Put all of the money from the register into a bag and hand it over” the robber yelled menacingly.
Cordon heard the robber yell across the store. He looked over the shelves and saw the man holding the clerk at gun point. He set down his beer and whiskey and began stealthily making is way to the counter. He could stop this robber or better yet he could get killed and finally get the end to the pain of living. He made his way around a display of Jack Daniel’s. His Oxy had kicked in and he wasn’t as graceful as he thought, and as he passed the last portion of the Jack Daniel’s display, he accidentally clipped a bottle that fell to the ground and shattered.
Gerald heard the crash and the startled robber turned and unloaded a barrel into the regular. He watched a massive hole appeared in his abdomen, as blood splattered everywhere and the regular was launched back into the Jack Daniel’s display, it collapsed and bottles crashed and shattered as they hit the ground. Gerald had never seen a man die before. He was in shock fixated on the sight. The Robber turned back around and screamed
“Money, Now, or you’re next!!!” Gerald returned focus to filling the bag.
Cordon knew immediately he was dead man. He felt the searing hot pain as the massive slug entered his chest making a gaping hole. He felt a sense of relief as he would be greeting death as an old friend. He felt an odd warmth in his chest, a slight itching. He looked down to see his chest seemed to be filling in. Organs seemed to be reforming. Confused he looked up as the robber screamed at the clerk. He grabbed the neck of a broken bottle next him. He stood and made his way toward the robber.
Gerald finished putting money in the bag. He looked up as he handed the robber the sack and saw something extraordinary. The regular had somehow survived and was walking toward the robber. There was a hole in his torso his shirt singed on the edges. The hole itself started filling in as muscle, sinew and skin was growing back. His eyes widened in shock. The robber noticed that he was startled and turned, just as Cordon plunged the bottle remnants deep into the robber’s neck. Arterial spay shot across the store as the life left the robber’s eye and his limp body plopped to the floor.
Gerald watched as the regular walked calmly to the back of the store and picked up his case of beer and gallon of their cheapest whiskey. He made his way back to the counter and reached into his pocket and removed a $50 bill. He threw it on the counter and for the first time since this customer had started coming regularly, he spoke.
“Keep the Change.” He then walked out of the store and disappeared into the night. Gerald picked up the phone and called 911.
It didn’t take long for him to piece it together on the way home. He didn’t die from the injection because he is one of these people who started developing abilities. This was followed by the realization that he can’t die. The one thing that he wants he can’t have. He had no idea how far this ability goes. Is it just injury he heals, does he age? Why did fate choose him? Does this means he will never see the afterlife meaning he has no hope of seeing Natalie? F@&k! The thought of that hurts.
But man meting out justice felt good. The satisfaction of stabbing that man in the throat felt right, it felt like justice. Anyone that would shoot someone in cold blood without an ounce of consideration deserved the fate he got. Why not use the abilities to hunt down people like that robber and make them pay? For the first time Cordon felt a sense of purpose. Maybe it is time for the people who deserve pain, pain like he has lived every day since Natalie died, to feel it.
After a few weeks as a lone vigilante he stumbled across others and joined them in an endeavor to protect the city from the people who threaten it. He would take the moniker
Vendetta.
Costumed:
Daily Life: