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Schwarzerblitz
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Graf Shabeel
Shabeel was born as a grey Cambodian tiger, reintroudced in the environment after their extinction in the early 2000s. He was caught in the wild as a sample for the "Beast War" project, a prominent branch of the Schwarzer Blitz experiment led by genetist Oskar Darnek and sponsored by Encorp. The experiment was supposed to create human-beast hybrids with high intellect and feral traits, to use as a shock weapon during war. However, after a spending review and the realization that the prototype hybrids didn't sport physical characteristics superior enough to be considered a success, the "Beast War" project was shut down and the two processed samples (Sambiong and Shabeel) reassigned as test subjects for head scientist Lars "Metallic" von Mayer, despite Darnek's complaints.
Shabeel found his death in 2063, due to the failure of one of Mayer's experiments. His body was recycled and augmented with mechanical extensions, as it was his brain, artificially kept alive in order to be reprogrammed and reimplanted in the body. As a result, he was designated as code M-160 "Graf", a best-hybrid combat cyborg.
M-160 Graf was one of a kind, equipped with pneumatic extensible arms and extensive scanning devices mounted inside his eyes. He then gained the infamous "red-eye" which became quickly one of his most prominent features.
Graf seemingly died in the Black Lightning Disaster, but, as it was later found out, his body survived the explosions unscathed and was dumped together with the ruins of Euterpe in Northern Algol.
There, it was repaired and reactivated by the hermit who names himself "Silman Simmerik", and been given a new reason to exist.
Graf has little to no memory of his time as Shabeel, despite remembering his former name. He can't recognize Sambiong and seems to have developed an own personality, based on his exposure to old sci-fi movies like "Blade Runner".
It is debatable whether Graf is still a biological being or not, but his own sense of self and desire to live could place more than a few doubts in the mind of an external observer.
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"Metallic" Mayer
Lars von Mayer had always been a brilliant student and scientist. At the age of 26, he was appointed as the leader of a huge experimental group in Geneve, with the task to study containment measures for outburst of distorsion energy, in order to prevent the appearance of hostile reality oscillation phenomena (ROP) near the distortion power plants.
In 2051, during a high energy experiment, the laboratory exploded due to an issue with the security system. Mayer lost half of his upper body in the accident, remaining on the edge between life and death for several months. After his recovery, he had the missing limbs replaced by conspicuous mechanical prosthetics.
His new look caused people to call him "Split Metal" or "Metallic" Mayer. Mayer accepted it, since it didn't impair his ability to work, but rumor has it that he lost his humanity and empathy in the aftermath of the accident, becoming nothing short of a machine.
In 2060, after the chaos ensuing the Neo Helsinki accident, Mayer was appointed as the leader of the Schwarzer Blitz project, an experiment born with the idea of using the outburst of distortion energy to create weapons and other means to wage war. While the first proposed place for the research group was the old Polaris base in Antarctica, the government opted to carry out the experiment in the city of Euterpe, Italy, using the existing distortion power plant as a means to perform experiments.
In the following four years, Mayer was responsible of several atrocities which led to the creation of mutants of any sort, like Sambiong and Shabeel.
On the night of the Black Lightning Disaster, Mayer attempted to stop Sambiong from running away, but was heavily injured in the ensuing fight. The distortion plant in Euterpe exploded soon after, killing him in the process.
Since then, the only known remnants of Mayer are some artifical brain backups left in a couple safes around the world. Nobody ever managed to analyze them properly, and it is rumored that they could have maintained a bit of their former owner conscience...
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