David North

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PHASE 1

PHASE 2

David North
Portrayed by Joe Manganiello
Codename:	Maverick
Affiliations:	X-Force
Birthdate:	June 13, 1965

Journal:	xp_maverick
Player:	Jillian

"If I'm liable to be killed over it, I'd like to know what I'm dying for."

Former sleeper agent with the Weapon X program, David North - formerly Christophe Nord of East Germany - broke his conditioning and became a maverick agent. Eventually he found his way into X-Force. Capture and experimentation by HYDRA has resulted in him having to adjust to new powers - and a new body.

Details

Character Journal: xp_maverick

Real Name: Christophe Nord

Codename: Maverick

Aliases: David North

First Appearance: August 31, 2005

Date of Birth: June 13, 1965

Place of Birth: Bern, Switzerland

Citizenship: Possesses French and United States passports and identities. Was born with Swiss citizenship and had East German citizenship, since revoked.

Relatives: Alain Nord (father, deceased), Jeanne Nord (mother, deceased), and Andreas Nord (brother)

Education: graduate of the Volkspolizei Academy (East German police force)

Relationship Status: single

Occupation: former operative of the East German Ministry for State Security (Stasi), former operative of Weapon X, former employee of Initech Benefits Management, currently Human Resources Manager for the Snow Valley Research Center

Team Affiliation: X-Force

Biography

Life in the GDR

Christophe Nord was born in Switzerland to parents Jeanne and Alain Nord. Alain was an agent of the Socialist Party of Germany, the operative functionary of the government of East Germany. When Christophe was six years old, French-born Jeanne attempted to leave his father and defect to the United States. However, she was detained by agents of the East German government and subsequently executed on the suspicion that she would betray her husband's secrets. Kept in the dark, Christophe and his brother were told that she had left on a sabbatical.

When he was 17, Christophe enrolled in the police academy where he excelled in both the administrative and functional aspects of his position. He quickly came to the attention of the East German secret Police (Stasi), and with his father's connections was soon made a special agent. Christophe's mutant power emerged shortly after that, although the Stasi kept it under wraps. Then, a precognitive flash showed him a future where the Berlin Wall fell a year later, resulting in the Stasi functionaries becoming political pariahs in the new Reconstruction era. This, coupled with his discovery of the truth regarding his mother, pushed him into action. He called in several political favours and was transferred out of East Germany before the Wall fell. A contact of his mother's provided him with safe passage out of Europe, and days after the Reunification of Germany, Alain Nord committed suicide. Andreas Nord has not been heard from since.

Phase 1

Weapon X

The man who brought Christophe out of East Germany was William Stryker - Phase 1, commander of the secret Weapon X unit. Stryker gave Christophe the new identity of David North, which allowed him to cut all ties with his past. He then conditioned David’s precognition abilities (through various forms of psychic and medical engineering) to be tied to his adrenaline levels in order to make him a more effective combat operative. David, codenamed Maverick, was then assigned to be part of Stryker’s personal field agent team, which also included one Jim Logan.

The Weapon X team remained active through the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, when a series of political investigations threatened to compromise the program, Stryker had most of the field agents undergo an intensive and thorough psionic conditioning. A complete cover identity was installed in these agents, turning them into average and unassuming American citizens – sleeper agents to be reactivated when needed. David underwent the conditioning after a failed mission and was told that he would be revived when the coast was clear. But with Stryker’s demise, the agent remained inactive, conveniently lost to the world.

Omega Red

From June 1994 through August 2005, David North was an average, white-collar employee of Initech Management for 11 years, going through a clockwork daily routine that was immensely dissatisfying but somehow necessary. While at work one day, he began to have disturbingly violent thoughts of murdering his colleagues and gradually realised that there were massive blank spots in his memory that spanned across the past decade. Confused, he walked out of his workplace and away from his mundane job, trying to reconcile emerging memories with life as he thought he knew it.

He was welcomed back to his safehouse-turned-home by one Arkady Rossovich – the Russian Killer known as Omega Red, and the very reason he had been sent undercover in the first place. His team of Weapon X operatives had once tried and failed to kill Rossovich, and he looked like he was ready to enact some belated revenge. Flight-or-fight instincts kicked in, and David bolted like a cat from a cold bath.

As more memories surfaced, he swiftly came to the correct conclusion that the Weapon X program no longer existed. That meant that his only sanctuary from the mad Russian sociopath on his heels was with Logan. Hence, David traced the trail of his fellow operative and eventually made a call to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. As Logan was in Canada at the time, he made a desperate request to Charles Xavier for asylum and protection. A team of X-Men was dispatched to bring him to a safehouse where he met Psylocke. She obligingly wielded her psychic knife and unlocked the conditioning placed on him.

But before he could recover from the painful and traumatic procedure, Rossovich attacked the safehouse. The Russian engaged Jetstream, Juggernaut, and Colossus in combat, secreting a poisonous spore that spelled death for anyone who came into contact with it. Jetstream was heavily injured and contaminated during the battle, which ended when the spore-immune David, memories whole, attacked Rossovich. He ignited a broken gas main, seemingly sacrificing himself in the resulting explosion. It later came to light that David did not perish when he called the school with instructions on how to save Jestream from the deathspores.

Shiva

The following three years were spent in Germany and various parts of Europe as David investigated the remnants of the Weapon X program and what purposes it once served. But his defection had resulted in Christophe Nord becoming the scapegoat for numerous political crimes in united Germany, complicating his ability to move around freely. Stateless, and after narrowly escaping a GSG-9 anti-terrorist team for the third time in as many months, he returned to America as David North to continue his investigations.

It took several months of research to track down Daniel Lyman, Stryker’s former right-hand man, and David only managed to pin him down when his former executive officer was taken into custody by Peru authorities for smuggling. Posing as Lyman’s lawyer, David rescued him on the condition that Lyman provide him with information on Weapon X. Lyman agreed and directed him towards a cache of data on the project. Unbeknownst to him, Lyman played him out and activated the Shiva protocols – a computer program designed to eliminate any rogue Weapon X operative by using other sleeper agents as pre-programmed assassins.

After being forced to kill former teammate and best friend Mastodon, David retrieved the data and sought asylum at Xavier’s school. But when John Wraith broke into the mansion to kill him, he decided that it would do no one (especially the students) any good if he remained. Hence, he sought the aid of the X-Force in decoding the data and dealing with the situation once and for all.

Together, they learned about the Shiva protocols and found out (among a number of disturbing discoveries) that the next assassin in line after Wraith was former teammate Carol Danvers. A sting operation was devised to take Wraith out, with David simultaneously attempting to prevent Carol’s activation. The sting operation succeeded but David was ultimately forced to shoot Carol down. He became the next assassin in the program, thus throwing the computer into a logic loop and shutting it down for good.

X-Force

After the Shiva debacle, David was approached by Betsy with an offer to join X-Force under the cover of being the Human Resources Director for the Snow Valley Research Center. He accepted it and moved into the brownstone apartment complex where his co-workers and teammates resided, ably stepping up to the challenge of re-adjusting to the desk job that had been his unknown cover for 11 years. Through several operations, beginning with the rescue of Natasha Romanova in Bucharest, David learned to trust in the capabilities of his new team and was gladly thrown fully into the role of a field agent once more. The Bucharest mission was quickly followed up by the prevention of an assassination attempt on William Bastion.

He also later learned that Arkady Rossovich, very much like a cockroach that would not die, was alive and well. In fact, he was looking to purchase a device that David’s Weapon X team had once stolen from the Soviet super-soldier research in the 1980s. However, and to his utter disappointment, David was not able to confront Rossovich and kill him, but he was placated by the fact that Jubilee had managed to steal the device from under his nose.

Also of note is that contact was finally established between David and Logan, and the former teammates even travelled together to Symarkia to interrogate Daniel Lyman who, though did not have the information they were seeking, revealed that there remained hidden Weapon X assets out there that could be activated at any time.

Unfortunately, David’s time in America was somewhat short-lived. Following the death of General Zakarov, Remy LeBleau sent him on an undercover operation in Europe to avoid becoming a target and to gather intelligence on European mutant weaponisation programs. Armed with a Doug Ramsey-created French identity, he established himself as an underground information courier while working a day job to feed himself. He was close to establishing the identity of whoever had taken Zakarov’s place in the hierarchy of bastardry but the moment he started to close in on the site of operations, all of his contacts dried up and ‘clients’ stopped coming in. After two attempts were made on his life, he dropped his cover and returned to the United States.

But life in the United States was no less harrowing. After being briefly mentally reverted to his sixteen year old self, he was swiftly swept up in the Genosha incident. During his forced stay in Genosha, David went through drug withdrawal as a result of his dependence on drugs to kickstart his precognition. Upon their release to the States, he overdosed on amphetamines and is currently working on getting his life and emotional control back in order.

In October, he was pulled off active duty in order to help Rachel Kinross-Dayspring in her search for Xorn. He returned at the end of the month just in time to help put an end to a magical gang war in England. In December 2012, he was part of the team lured away from New York by Belladonna Boudreaux-LeBeau in order for the Serpent Society to ambush the remaining X-Forcers at the Brownstone.

Life As Usual

Things continued on as normal for the spy - David spent a lot of time traveling, never home much although when he was there Wade was right there to welcome him home in typical Wade manner. In April 2013 he helped rescue Artie Maddicks, who had gotten mixed up with Arcade, and in December he helped retrieve Illyana Rasputin's long lost bloodstones.

Weapon X and the End of the World

2014 was mostly quiet for David - until November when Weapon X reared it's ugly head once more. North was enlisted to help Garrison, Wade, and Logan investigate a lead into the program. The lead turned into having to rescue Kyle and then attempt to rescue his mother - that mission was less successful.

There was no downtime, however - in January 2015 Apocalypse came back onto the scene with a new plan for world destruction. North went with a team to Africa to help track him, and they ended up in a fight against alternate versions of themselves, which they barely escaped. He later tried to help Wanda, Dr. Strange, and Doug keep the universe together - they failed.

Phase 2

The New World

North woke up on the lawn of the mansion with the other survivors, and immediately threw himself into his work, helping re-establish connection with old contacts and generally ignoring the world. In February he went with a strike team to try and retrieve the stolen information of US politicians, but the entire mission went horribly wrong. From there North continued his work, avoiding being in the mansion as much as possible.

This avoidance proved to be his undoing, as he was taken by HYDRA and experimented upon with a variation of the Project SuperSoldier serum. He was eventually recovered by a small X-Force team, but remained in recovery for months as his body underwent a variety of changes due to the serum. The most dramatic change was that North appeared to have de-aged by several decades, a change Felicia Hardy was most appreciative of. The pair continued their flirting-but-not friendship, with Felicia doing much to aid North's recovery.

It wasn't until December 2015 when North was able to go back into the field, this time providing back-up to an operation to take down former Genoshan Magistrates and free their mutates. When he and his partner Jubilation Lee took over the bridge, it was North who killed Brian Razanamasy, chief of security.

Physical Characteristics

Height: 6'2"

Weight: 180 lbs

Eyes: blue

Hair: brown

Since Jungbrunnen, North looks to be around 35 years old.

Powers

David North is a mild precognitive. His ability allows him to see a number of possible outcomes of any action he takes, and select the one that would be most tactically advantageous. As a result of the psionic conditioning he underwent as a Weapon X operative, his power is tied to his adrenaline levels. He is able to continue to perceive and react to the real world while experiencing these ‘visions’ – something he had had to work to achieve in the past. Typically, it acts as an inbuilt advanced warning system when his fight-or-flight response kicks in.

However, his ability is presently uncontrolled and exceptionally short-term; it cannot be consciously triggered and its maximum range (which was deliberately compromised during the psionic conditioning) is now a stunning ninety seconds. Also, it only shows him the consequences of his personal actions – while his precognition might allow him to move out of the way of a sniper's bullet, it would not show him that the bullet would go on to strike one of his allies.

In times of (relative) need, David has taken to swallowing adrenaline-inducing pharmaceutical drugs such as Ritalin (methylphenidate) and Isopernaline. These allow him to jumpstart his ability in pressing situations where his powers may not naturally kick in.

Beyond his precognition, David is a trained martial artist and marksman who favours automatic pistols over any other sort of firearm. Due to his training with the Stasi and Weapon X, he is an excellent investigative agent. He also possesses extensive knowledge on financial accounting procedures as well as business and finance law.

Post Jungbrunnen:

Following his capture by HYDRA and their experimentation on him, his powers have undergone the following changes:

North’s body has regressed to an approximate age of 35 and the Serum has given him a healing factor which is intrinsically tied in with an ability to absorb kinetic energy. More specifically:

North can absorb the kinetic energy of falls and hits (i.e. blunt impact/trauma) to trigger/fuel his healing factor. The harder he gets hit, the faster he heals. For example, getting thrown off the roof would break his legs, but they would heal much faster than, say, getting sliced by a blade, which doesn’t require as much pressure. (“Oh, God. North’s been stabbed! PUNCH HIM IN THE FACE!”) As an approximation, getting thrown 2 stories may have him heal as fast as Wade, 5 stories as fast as Kyle, 10 stories as fast as Logan.

When he’s not getting thrown off buildings (i.e.there is no healing to be had), on his usual routine of sparring and exercise there is a build up of kinetic energy in his body. This allows him to throw harder punches and there is an increase in his endurance levels and resistance to illnesses. But the build up also causes him to become increasingly restless and agitated. He will have to learn that a good way to release the energy, as opposed to intentionally hurting himself, would be low impact activities like yoga, weights, calisthenics and tai-chi. Conversely, if he were totally stationary, pushing paper and drinking beer or held in captivity in a small space, he would be at normal-people-level.

His precognition remains tied to his adrenal levels, but with the presence of the healing factor, it is harder to intentionally activate/control seeing that his metabolism will not allow him to use pills to trigger it and a higher level of physical activity is required to get his adrenaline levels up high enough to have it kick in. On the other hand, before he figures out that he needs to spend the energy build up, it would cause his precognition to trip off at stupid times.

Equipment

Carries various firearms, preferring a H&K MK23 MOD 0 semi-automatic handgun.

Trivia

David has a history of using stimulants such as amphetamines to "jumpstart" his precognition in noncombat situations. He has described the experience as "like staring into the sun and trying not to blink", and the process is physically debilitating for him.

North's hobbies include restoring and selling antique cuckoo clocks, cooking, and listening to obscure German hip-hop music from the 1980s.

Used to not remaining in one place for a long time, David's only irreplaceable personal possession is his dogtags.