A mild-mannered, reformed executor of a hate group, Marco Adriano received his second name and a second chance at life under the sole condition he spend the rest of his living years helping the very people he once tried to eliminate. Before his death, he worked as a high-ranking member of a local mafia family that (on the record) distributes Celebrer, a drug necessary for a subset of people's survival, and (off the record) operates a bar/brothel that moonlights as a refuge for any of those same people in need.
Note that Marco's past involves the
cruel experimentation on and brainwashing of children, with the sole purpose of creating human weapons to eradicate an entire minority group. Further content warnings and opt-out are located
here.
Marco is a Superhuman Normal, or Hunter. As a Superhuman Normal, Marco possesses the following abilities:
• SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH. above-average strength (example: inflicting severe structural damage to concrete buildings from fists and legs alone)
• SUPERHUMAN DURABILITY. above-average durability (example: able to sustain and heal from wounds that would otherwise be fatal to a regular human being)
• SUPERHUMAN REFLEXES. above-average response time (example: keen agility and reflexes allow him to dodge/block swift attacks)
• SUPERHUMAN SENSE OF SMELL. through smell alone he can distinguish between a "normal" human and a Twilight (the descendants from the supersoldiers who suffer the after-effects of Celebrer).
While Marco does not possess a dependency on
Celebrer, using the drug (either by ingestion or injection) can still greatly boost his abilities.
On top of these, Marco is also proficient in:
• HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT. over two decades' worth of combat experience though it should be noted he's got far more proficiency and experience fighting with his wires.
• STRATEGY. displays keen tactical thinking during battle.
• GARROTTES. his weapon of choice, near-invisible wires normally housed within a heavy-duty "watch" on his left hand. Stands to reason he is just as adept at handling similar wires or ropes to strangle, decapitate, or manipulate his environment.
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canon information.
...
The use of the drug for military purposes was eventually banned at the conclusion of the war in 1912, due to numerous cases of problems being reported. As with any drug, the high levels of toxicity in Celebrer not only caused numerous problems for its users, but created a strong dependence to it as well.
Users of the drug were eventually called Twilights due to the side effect of a shortened lifespan. Apart from this, all Twilights and their descendants also spend their short lives suffering from a variety of mental and/or physical disorders that work as "compensation" for their superhuman abilities. Withdrawal symptoms for the drug include a wide variety of health problems, ranging from something as simple as nausea to something as fatal as death itself. In time, the very drug that caused all their problems became the only thing keeping the users alive and stable.
This world also houses another breed of superhumans who are descendants of Celebrer-users that do not suffer any negative effects from the drug. They are more rare and, once idenified, typically raised as Hunters or living weapons for whomever is the highest bidder. Most (but not all) Hunters appear to work under a faction called the Destroyers.
The majority of the canon takes place in a city called Ergastulum, created after the war and initially meant as a sanctioned quarantine for all the Twilights that the world decided it no longer needed. Deemed too unstable and dangerous, Twilights were (and largely still are) considered beneath humans and treated as such. Any Twilights that were born outside of the area were considered "strays," captured, tagged, and sent to Ergastulum with the others. Eventually, Twilights were no longer the only inhabitants: once prisons became too overcrowded, criminals both Twilight and human were dumped in the city, and refugees from other countries fled there as well. Despite being part of a larger country, it is essentially left to its own devices. Within Ergastulum are factions known as the Four Big Fathers. These organizations are largely responsible for maintaining the delicate balance between the Twilights and the humans.
The PAUL KLEE GUILD provides "work" for Twilights. It is due to the late Paul Klee’s efforts in 1934 that the social status of Twilights began to improve — by organizing Twilights into a large mercenary group for hire, they became of some use to humans once more. The MONROE family is in charge of commerce, as well as providing support for Twilights who do not work under the Guild. The CRISTIANO family work under the Monroe family and are in charge of distributing Celebrer (though the Cristianos family also run an underground safe haven for unaffiliated Twilights under the guise of a brothel/bar). Last is the CORSICA family who are in charge of the city’s sex industry and weapons smuggling.
While the first three organizations tend to be more sympathetic to Twilights, the Corsica family is largely anti-Twilight, and never really hesitates to make that known. It is under the Corsica family that the aforementioned Destroyers are employed. Their wide-spread massacre of Twilights has spurred anti-Twilight groups back into action. Monopolizing on this chaos, the Corsica family has also targeted the heads of the pro-Twilight organizations, hoping to tip more of the power in their own favor.
history.
...
During the Second Destroyer's attack on Ergastulum, in which Spas encountered Twilights for the first time, he was shocked to learn they were not the "monsters" he had always been told about. After realizing he had been lied to and wrong all along, and that he had killed many innocents as a result, he has a change of heart and attempts to stop — and when he fails at this — leave the Second Destroyers. It's during this encounter that he receives the large scar on his face from Striker, one of the stronger ones in their team, attacks him out of feeling betrayed and abandoned.
It's as he's laying bleeding out and desolate that Luca Cristiano finds him. He alone decides to spare the boy, working out with the rest of the Four Big Fathers that Spas — whom he renames Marco Adriano — will become their tool now. That he will be allowed to live, all on the stipulation that he spends the rest of his life atoning for all the evil he'd done, and that if those Hunters or something similar were to ever strike Ergastulum again he would readily lay his life down on the line to protect the very peoples he had once been determined to destroy.
This brings us to the series proper, where Marco is now 29 years old and working as one of the righthand men of Loretta Cristiano Amodio — the Cristiano Family's current head and the late Luca Cristiano's 14 year old daughter. Marco has since grown to be an important member of the family in both professional and literal ways, and has since entered into a significant relationship with Connie (a young girl he'd met while he had still been Spas, whose parents had died under the hands of another Second Destroyer). However, not long after the series starts, there comes the return of the Hunters (now calling themselves the Third Destroyers). Striker, specifically, seeks Marco out in retribution, going so far as to kidnap Connie to lure Marco out.
The arrival of The Third Destroyers within Ergastulum brings the rising tensions between the Four Big Fathers to a head, upsetting the delicate balance of the city's politics, and several secrets are revealed such as: the Destroyers' close connection to (and possible employment from) the Corsica family, and the betrayal and decades-long orchestration of all of these major events by the head of the Monroe family, who had previously presented himself as a Twilight-sympathizer.
With the return of his former Hunter comrades, Marco is drawn out from his (comparatively quieter) to try and take down the remaining members so that he might properly atone for his past sins. Unfortunately, he only manages to severely injure two before succumbing to his own injuries.
vices/virtues.
...
Selfish. And yet, despite his guilt, Marco still finds the space to be selfish. "Selfish," in this case, is permission. Even after all that he's done, and after all the lives he's ruined, he has still given himself the permission to want and to keep. There's no better example for this than with Connie, whose parents were murdered right in front of her by one of his own comrades, who had repeatedly ordered for him to never show his face to her again. And yet still, she somehow learns not only to forgive him, but to even love him, and Marco is selfish enough to let her and to love her in return. He knows his second chance at life is meant for only one purpose, to atone and prevent another massacre like what had happened under his hands (even if it meant throwing away his own life for it), and yet he still dared to get matching rings with Connie, promising her a happiness he knows he never could have fulfilled.
Deserter. That's what he does, in the end — he leaves. He left the Destroyers when he had his change of heart and realized he couldn't possibly convince any of the rest to see things his way. He left the Cristianos and Connie, the only semblance of a family he lucked out on, to walk into his doom in the vain attempt to fulfill at least one of his promises, out of the mountain of many he breaks by doing so.
virtues.
...
Open-minded. But though he is loyal, he is no mindless foot soldier. What drives Marco the most is his understanding of what is right and what is wrong. Especially when he was younger, as Spas, he was conditioned to believe that Twilights were monsters terrorizing the rest of regular humanity, and that the eradication of them would only lead to the safety and prosperity of the humans that fear them. However, after witnessing several events that challenged that very idea, Spas was quick to reconsider all that he'd been told. Rather than refuse or avoid this world-shattering epiphany, Spas faced these revelations head-on and came to understand and accept that he had been wrong all along.
Compassionate. In the end, it's his heart and his conscience that are both his biggest weaknesses and his strongest assets. His compassion for others had him committing countless atrocities at the drop of a hat, and yet was also the very thing that made him stop and finally question his actions. Even now, after everything, Marco has never really been anyone more than the little boy who read fairytales late into the evening, dreaming of being a hero who protects those who can't protect themselves.