Callsign: Thorn

Real Name: Arthur Bradshaw
Renegade Name: Thorn
Title: Agent X531488N, Spectre One
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Race: Human (Psychic)
Hair: Cropped Brown hair
Eyes: Grey
Height: 6’0”
Weight: 196 lbs
Blood type: AB+


Bradshaw looks every bit the professional he is, with cropped brown hair and steel gray eyes. In the field, he’s outfitted with a suite of gadgets and weapons that interact directly with his psychic abilities. His face is generally concealed by a gasmask when on assignment.


Tireless, professional, and driven, Arthur is a covert operative who takes orders directly from the Initiative, an unofficial (and not sanctioned by the United States Government) offshoot of the CIA that specializes in psionic intelligence gatherers and assassins. When on assignment, Arthur has absolutely zero tolerance for anything remotely unrelated to the job at hand, and he will accomplish any order given to him by his handler. Off assignment, he’s fairly sympathetic to the average citizen, with minimal love of villains who would prey on them. His loyalties are ultimately to an organization and the country it serves rather than to morality.


[File Status: CLASSIFIED]
[Present Code Clearance BLACK and submit to retinal scan]
[Retinal Scan success, present clearance]
[Clearance: *********************]
[ACCESS GRANTED]
[Subject Report: Thorn - revised as of 3/07/2XXX]
Born Arthur Bradshaw, Thorn grew up in the state of Illinois, and attended multiple charter schools growing up, graduating high school at the top of his class. In spite of this, the Initiative deems him to be of above-average, but otherwise unremarkable, intelligence.
Thorn enlisted in the Army right out of highschool, and served as a Rifleman and Sniper for many years, attaining the rank of Staff Sergeant before being recruited by Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta (SFOD-D).
Subject first came to the attention of the Central Intelligence Agency in general, and the Initiative in particular after a botched raid led to 90% unit casualties and the complete elimination of all enemy combatants. His psionic abilities awoke during the operation, killing essential High Value Targets slated for capture, as well as causing catastrophic nervous system damage to all survivors, friend and foe alike.
The incident was covered up, and the subject was fitted with a neural dampener when he was transferred to the Initiative, pending training and refinement of his capabilities. He was mentored by his senior agent X41822N. Following a two-year-long training regimen to stabilize and allow his abilities to be properly focused, he was cleared for field work [see relevant files for details of his assignments].



Psionic abilities: As a psychic, Arthur can use his mind to induce paranormal phenomena. Arthur himself scores high in terms of psionic potential, demonstrating powers such as sensing other psychics, telepathy, and psychokinesis, with Arthur being so well practiced that he can use his psionic powers to cause harm to a target’s nervous system. He was also trained to use his psionic abilities to enhance his already-existing physical attributes such as his strength and stamina. While some psychics have been known to use pyrokinesis, Arthur is not one of them.

Example powers:

• Kinetic blast: Uses his mind to create an orb of kinetic energy to use against an enemy. The power behind it is considerable, and can bend even an industrial-strength girder.
  

• Psi-shield: He uses psionics to create a physical shield around himself for a limited time that breaks upon absorbing a certain amount of damage.
  

• Crushing Grip: His psionic powers suspend a small cluster of enemies in the air, doing damage over a period of seconds before the power expires.
  

While a powerful psychic, Arthur is still human, and is vulnerable to the same problems that the average humans are. He can sicken, he can be injured, he can even be shot in the head and killed instantly.

While psychics like him have the ability to read minds, he can’t necessarily shield his thoughts. Other psychics find him easy to read as a result. Certain non-psychic individuals can train themselves to block out any capabilities to have their minds read or even leak out false emotions, but this is not a guarantee of success.


Specialized Hazardous EnVironment (HEV) armor: Repurposed from an old CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear) suit, this skinsuit is powered by a small nuclear fusion battery and is one of the most complex pieces of technology ever built. Among various features, this suit includes:

• Artificial muscle fibers that interact directly with an operative’s psionic abilities, enhancing the wearer’s strength and speed.
  

• A cloaking device that refracts light along the surface of the suit, effectively rendering the wearer invisible in darkness or low-light conditions. This device is susceptible to being shorted out by EMP or electrical interference.
  

• An armored vest that combines kevlar and light polymer plating, protecting the wearer from gunfire. Due to the relatively thin composition of the plating, this armor is recommended for light skirmishes rather than pitched battles. The forearms and legs are similarly guarded.
  

• A sealed gas mask that includes specialized lenses that allow for light-amplification and thermal optics vision modes.
  

• The suit boasts a closed-circuit respiration system alongside the gas mask that allows it to be used in hostile environments, including those with a complete lack of oxygen, for a limited timeframe.
  

Canister Rifle: A marksman’s rifle with an oversized sound/flash suppressor, this rifle fires .50 caliber anti-personnel rounds that explode almost immediately after penetration. Included are a scope and target designator for coordinating with airstrikes, and a sophisticated rangefinder and compensation software that accounts for changes in wind speed, gravity, and Coriolis Effect in real-time. In addition, the rifle comes with an underbarrel multi-purpose launcher that can be loaded with all manner of grenades, gadgets, and less-lethal ordnance.



Not Applicable



People often express a feeling of discomfort whenever he is in the room, and especially when he is cloaked - the feeling tends to pass if he’s asleep or otherwise not in the immediate vicinity. It’s theorized that the feeling is connected to passive psionic abilities that he cannot deactivate at will.

People make such a big deal about his power that they often tend to forget that, even if deprived of his psionic abilities, Thorn still has special forces training, a large selection of tactics he can employ in a given situation, and a similarly large suite of gadgets and gizmos to match.



All parameters were clear: retrieve intelligence with zero witnesses from a band of mercenaries. Colloquially called “Blue Eagle” due to their distinctive emblem, these mercenaries have traditionally been normal human beings for almost their entire existence. Where they originated from - and who their clients were - are unknown, but they are believed to originate from Western Europe or the US, based on the fact that they typically used NATO weaponry.

Satellite relays that keep an eye on their known sites, however, have been tracking an increasing number of Metahumans being recruited.The purpose behind this is unknown; hence, the infiltration. Thorn inserted himself into the AO by water, happy that the climate controls of his HEV suit kept him warm under the frozen surface of the lake. The thermal optics of his mask were active, and it made any surface patrols along the thick ice an easy endeavor.

Fortunately for him, wind was starting to kick up the local snow, beginning a whiteout. By the time he surfaced through a small gap along the shoreline, visibility was next to nil. There had to be a few caves where he could allow his suit to dry with him in order to employ his cloaking without issue.

Thorn found a small cave, but a complication occurred - a sleeping bear was in there. Thorn was not ready to go loud just yet. His eyes glowed as he reached out with his mind, successfully dissuading the bear of any notion that there was an intruder in her cave. A sleeping animal was easier to persuade than one that was on full alert.

The storm was still going when his armor sufficiently dried, and he tiptoed out of the cave, activating his cloak. The snowfall and wind was going to be a godsend at wiping away his tracks, and the satellite map he had of the area told him the base was north of his location. Still, he kept his thermal optics on to give him some feedback as to where enemy patrols were going.

It was a long trek with more than a few soft contacts; Blue Eagle hired only professionals that understood that the best patrols were done in pairs. Two people were harder to deal with than one, after all - there was a reason the ‘buddy system’ had long withstood the test of time.

The storm was starting to die down, and he had a rough visual of the compound that satellite recon had of the location. The compound in question was an abandoned airfield with a number of hangers and barracks and a single traffic control tower. It was surrounded by a tall chain-linked fence with barbed wire, but it looked like Blue Eagle made its own additions of sandbags and guard towers overlooking the fences.

Thorn got a solid look at the main gate as the weather further cleared. What he saw gave him a measure of pause: the pair of guards were wearing a form of powered exoskeletons. These things were lackluster in terms of their environmental protections, and the servomotors were not advanced enough to allow movement faster than a light jog, but they could take a lot of punishment from even large-caliber rounds.

Those things weren’t exactly easy to find - only a few dozen units were made in former Soviet states - nor were they particularly cheap to maintain. Most likely, they were a gift from whatever client was bankrolling Blue Eagle. Thorn could easily make the shot from here - the armor was unlikely to stand up to .50 caliber High Explosive - but decided that it was better to not alert the whole compound right out of the gate.

With the storm gone, there was another complication: the approach. His cloaking module was able to refract light, but it also gave a telltale shimmer in broad daylight. It couldn’t defy physics, either, and he’d still be leaving his tracks in the snow - a half-competent lookout would see the tracks coming and immediately deduce that someone was there.

He could wait until nightfall or until another storm kicked in, try to approach from the tarmac and risk tangling with the exoskeleton-clad mercenaries, or he could snipe the guards watching his potential approach from the snow banks.

No matter what, Thorn was going to end up making some noise.