Pete Wisdom

Pete Wisdom a.k.a. Mr. W is publicly known, and famous in Europe for, being the Director of the British superhero team Excalibur. After the dissolution of the group, however, he has largely faded from the public eye, and seems to spend much time in New York and England respectively.

Background
Sometimes people are born for glory. Others are born for terror. Some men are born for greatness. Peter Paul Winston Wisdom was born in London in October, 1969.

Peter had a decent family life in his youth, though strained. He and his sister Romany were taught by their father Harold at an early age about criminology and the dangers that lurked in the world and that they should do their part to protect the Crown. Harold was a Detective Sergeant in the service of Scotland Yard and an expert criminologist at the time. Peter received a typical education, and had a focus on languages and history. His sister focused on mythology.

Peter's parents divorced when he was fifteen, and his father took to drinking. Ever since, alcohol reminded Wisdom of family. At one point, his mother had a heated argument with him over the phone. She claimed she never loved his father, and never wanted him in the first place. He didn't tell his father what she had said, but she wasn't hesitant to throw his words in his face by telling Harold how vicious he was to his mother. This prompted Peter to neglect a visit to his mother, who was expectantly waiting for him in her flat by the window. She was one of sixteen people gunned down by Michael Ryan in the Hungerford Massacre of 1987. Peter blamed himself for her death. Harold blamed him, too. Romany was already working for Weird Happenings Organization in the Department of Unusual Deaths as an occultist.

At seventeen he went to academy to learn to protect the crown as a member of the British Intelligence Agency. He was signed on as a member of MI-6 and had quickly shown adaptability and promise. He rose quickly through the ranks, becoming self-reliant. He kept his mutant status a secret, using his powers to assist on missions and training with them in secret. It was during these years he met a girl named Sari St. Hubbins. She was a lovely thing, and he fell for her, head over heels. They were in similar lines of work, albeit he was in government and she was a mercenary, and the two promised that they wouldn't let work get in their way.

Then Peter's powers came out to his superiors, and he was approached by a group called Black Air. They claimed they needed him and his abilities to help retrieve artifacts of human, alien, and supernatural origin throughout the world. He agreed. Sari didn't like that, but a promise is a promise. Black Air studied his powers. He volunteered through most of it; indeed, they didn't really do anything harmful to him. They helped him hone his abilities, and he soon became more adept at using his hot-knives as weapons than with firearms or conventional armaments, all of which he was more than adept at.

However, things started to get ugly for Pete. He did a number of missions that involved the extermination of a number of people, sometimes every living being in a building to guarantee no witnesses. It wore on him, but he was loyal to the Crown and everything it represented, so he did his duty, even as it tore him up inside. As a way to justify his actions, he often chose to take part in missions that slew heartless killers, to keep innocents safe.

Apart from being a killing machine for the United Kingdom, he also received recognition and prestige for exemplary bravery, even above and beyond the call of duty. If an innocent could be saved in the midst of a slaughter, he'd save them. He also made friends in other agencies. He's gone so far as to steal a helicopter to fly MI-6 agent Doyle to hospital after his appendix burst. He'd made friends with the head of Criminal Intelligence, Jardine, and had rescued his daughter, a photojournalist, from armed gunmen. He even took three bullets to save her life. He was a hero when he could be, and a killer when told to be.

In time, he had found information on a plot most foul - a plot to kill the Queen! Using his contacts and his extensive knowledge, Peter quickly found the culprit: none other than his girlfriend, Sari St. Hubbins. A hard life of death, carnage, and now of betrayal, Peter turned her in for two reasons: one, incarceration might lead to rehabilitation, and two, "It needed doing," he answered to a superior. He received commendation from the Queen herself, but the act in betraying his lady to his country colored the rest of his relationships since then. He began to take on a quiet affair with his superior, Michelle Scicluna.

An unfortunate turn of events occurred when Peter was monitoring a Scottish cairn as part of the 'artifact retrieval' duties. Another organization, the Weird Happenings Organization of the Ministry of Defense, came sniffing around. This particular operation of Black Air's was completely classified and very clandestine. Peter's immediate superior, the electrical mutant Scratch, ordered that every member of the W.H.O. in the vicinity be erased. Reluctantly, Peter participated in the slaughter, and only he and Scratch survived. This lowered his opinion of his superior officer forever after.

After the massacre of the W.H.O. agents and the mysterious circumstances thereof, the Weird Happenings Organization dissolved, and was absorbed by Black Air, now becoming the lead in supernatural and paranormal activity investigation in the United Kingdom. Pete was trained in the knowledge and self-defense against all sorts of various supernatural entities - fairies, werewolves, vampires, even demons of the N'Garai realm. Needless to say, hot-knives helped. The extra jurisdiction sent Pete to other places for other purposes, but always to kill.

He was sent to a place in British Antarctica, a fortress called Cold Grey, to investigate and infiltrate, and retrieve a magical artifact, the still-beating heart of an immortal, otherworldly entity. He was expecting it to be deserted, but found a the fortress a giant tomb. Every single cultist in reverence to the heart, including children, and feed animals and pets, were poisoned to death, preserved by the cold to the uncaring Antarctica.

Mission accomplished, his downtime back in the UK was one of sobering dismay. Relaxation was nearly impossible, being around information involving horrible things. Black Air was becoming corrupt, there was no doubt, and Peter was stuck in it. He'd received his next orders to infiltrate a terrorist training camp in Ronsaphan, Thailand, when he'd overheard his fellow agents sharing tales and cracking jokes. His immediate superior, Scratch, was boasting about an unforgivable atrocity. Scratch was telling about a mission where he'd gone to Norfolk to retrieve a fallen alien artifact, and as it landed in the properly of a school, Scratch had summarily cut the power, disrupted communication, and killed every single student, teacher, and employee to ensure nobody else knew about it. Wisdom couldn't take it. The next thing he knew he had a hand against Scratch's ribs and another hand on his face, searing hot-knives into the man's flesh. Scratch suffered breathing problems and half a face after that.

Peter spent six months in societal re-integration and rehabilitation after suffering a breakdown following his attack on his superior. He was not allowed on missions, but was allowed to roam the Black Air headquarters. He underwent a secret crusade to try to atone for his past atrocities, and took to alcohol for comfort. He looked up information on databases and files about individuals, groups and governments who have committed crimes against primarily mutant-kind, and various files of supernatural atrocities and the like. So far, he's stolen away an archive of over three hundred document-filled files, and continues to do so today.

Disillusioned, cynical, and doing his utmost not to kill again, he remains an information-broker and adviser to Black Air, an organization that no longer serves the Crown, but its own ends on supernatural and mutant exploitation and experimentation.

Time passed, and soon enough Pete found himself unable to take working for such a corrupt organization. He spent frequent trips across the US, and made friends with Charles Xavier, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers and Jennifer Walters - and through them their affiliations, the X-Men and the Avengers. Conspiring with both groups and with certain British superheroes, Wisdom spearheaded the take-down of Black Air. With many of their higher-ups dead or incarcerated, Black Air was no more and Wisdom was given control over the Weird Happenings aspects of the British government.

He decided to be less clandestine and took a note from the Avengers, and helped design Excalibur - the United Kingdom's first superhero team, set to defend the Crown against superhuman, supernatural and alien threats. Other members included Captain Britain, Spitfire, Nocturne and others. For a time, they did what they did well - quietly and openly fighting the things that went bump in the night or threw their names in public and threatened world domination, and putting their villainous backsides in the ground or prison.

And then the monetary backups happened. Mountains of paperwork suddenly caught up, tied in with trails of money that went nowhere thanks to Black Air. Without sufficient funding to keep something like a superhero team, high-end technology, as well as consistent trips to and from the UK for high-clearance individuals, Parliament could only see fit to quietly declare that the U.K. was now made secure thanks to the brave members of Excalibur, and the team was dissolved. Some of them retired, others still did their heroics independently. Others moved on.

Pete refused to be put out like this. However, he knew his hands were tied. Maybe retirement wasn't such a bad idea? He still had a nice little nest egg, but he knew where his heart was - in adventure. He craved that thrill of doing dangerous things, meeting exciting and dangerous individuals, and potentially meeting pain and death in the name of protecting the greater good.

He moved to New York, knowing his deeds are mostly illegal in the UK - strict gun control laws, and he went back to old, aggressive habits since he cast off his previous trepidation about hurting or killing people. Something of a grizzled antihero without proper employ, he has an apartment in downtown New York where he spends his days as an independent investigator. He's poorly adveritsed, he's poorly set up for business, but he has plenty of resources and a decent amount of drive. But he doesn't exactly know where he's going, just yet...

Personality

 * Humor: Everybody has a way that they cope with things. If you're British, then that thing is humor. Pete finds enjoyment in the silly and asinine, and has an all-too-intimate understanding of dark, deadpan humor, and is a master of snark.
 * Flirt: Pete's a man, and men have needs. And when you're forced to lock your girlfriend up because she's trying to kill the Queen, well, that does things to a man. He's a crass flirt, some would even call a creep or a pervert, but he's primarily just a rude Englishman.
 * Hard: To put it simply, Peter's a jerk a lot of the time. He's rude, he's uncouth, and he's got a mouth like a British sailor. He's known to be a hard-ass and isn't afraid of the reputation.
 * Cold: Often enough, he's a distant, aloof fellow. Most of the time that's because he's doing work, and that work involves him to prevent making connections. However, sometimes its hard to keep a work life and home life from blending, and he can be distant and cold even to his friends.
 * Duty: If Wisdom could be called one thing, it would be loyal to his work. Time and again he's done worse than deplorable things, and sacrificed friendships and his own happiness alike in the service of his work. However, he's also proven time and again a loyalty to friends and compatriots, and hasn't sold out a friend yet.
 * Cynical: A brooding, moody attitude is what grows when your living is in death. Pete tends to often look at the darker side of things, and the inevitability of one's own mortality that keeps him going to fight for something greater.
 * Heroic: The definition of a heroism is an act that puts one at risk in service of others. Pete has been known to do just that, even unto the risk of his own death. He's taken bullets for people, risked losing life, limb, reputation and career, to save friends and innocents alike.

Logs
Pre-Vamp Logs


 * 2011-07-23 - Cap Says Hail HYDRA! - The Avengers travel to Mt. Fuji to stop a brain washing plot of HYDRA against the Avengers. Back-up is there however, and is sorely needed when one of their own betrays them.
 * 2011-12-05 - After School Special - Scott visits Pete to give Lorelei an After School Special Talk.
 * Marvel: 2011 12 26 - Networking at the Gym - Jeanne tries to enlist Pete's help in landing a job outside of gymnastics.