Righteous Authority

> *"F%#king lethal."*
>  ―Thomas Bright
>
>
>
>

**Righteous Authority** is a patriotic soldier whose ideology has become very antagonistic to some extents. His drive to kill and preserve often coincide in peculiar ways. Currently, he is positioned as the unofficial leader of Death Class; a group of prisoners, businessmen and more who are tasked to either defend varying objectives in hope of reducing their debt and sentences.

## History

### Righteous Roots

Thomas was the first person and only person to join a hit squad assembled by an elderly Ark City denizen, Old Man. The elderly man hired Thomas when Thomas showed up to the wrong job interview. Thomas was not aware he showed up to the wrong interview, so when the old man asked if he was there to sign up for the clandestine force, young Mr. Bright said yes and took an oath to pledge his life to an eternal service.

As time went on, it became apparent to Thomas that the job he signed on for was not the one he sought -- but it was the one he now had. He saw it as a sign of sorts; to be the man that an old man needed in the desperate times. Old Man trained Righteous Authority in his old ways, giving him pointers and all sorts. The vigorous training went on for months, Thomas Bright was no longer the man he once was. Old Man gave Thomas a name that once belonged to his old mercenary unit; Righteous Authority. Thomas did not learn a lot about Old Man, only that he was ex-mercenary and special forces for corporations and certain rich houses.

### A Righteous Culling

Deep into training, Thomas - now calling himself Righteous Authority - was assigned to his first hit by Old Man. He was tasked to search and kill a man called Jackson Cornwall. And that he did. Thomas, over the course of six months, tracked down the precise location of Jackson Cornwall and gathered all the knowledge he could on him, learning of his heinous and sinister crimes against humanity, such as human trafficking, illegal public executions, cannibalism and over seventeen counts of murder.

The day eventually came when Righteous Authority had to pull the trigger on Jackson. He followed the man into the bathroom stalls of the hotel he stayed at one night and proceeded to viciously suffocate the man with the visible plumbing pipes he pulled off the wall. Later that night, the news reported his murder as a suicide. Thomas submitted all the information he had on Jackson to Infogenocide anonymously, outing the dead man's schemes and all. The Cornwall Family fell to poverty and all his outed associates went underground. Righteous Authority followed up on the fleeing associates and wiped them off the face of the tarnished Earth. They were never reported on further.

### Rightful Authority

Years went on and Righteous Authority had killed up to one hundred of vile people for the greater good of the human race in Ark City. One special case Old Man gave Righteous Authority was to hunt down and kill a man named Dmitri Artyomov - Old Man told Thomas it would be his last mission for him. Thomas took it as a chance to prove himself one last time.

However, after years of search, he could not find the man he was looking for. Until one day, he returned to Old Man at his house, ready to admit failure, when he drove into the driveway and glanced at the property's mailbox. Something he had never seen before when visiting. On the side, it read the surname of his target: Artyomov. The man he was searching for the entire time was the man he'd been with for almost a decade.

Thomas found Old Man in the snowy fields digging a grave. He dug the grave beside another person's. That person was Old Man's wife, who passed away years before Thomas was born.

When confronting Old Man, Righteous Authority said the man's real name to get his attention. Old Man chuckled and turned to see the man he had made, beaming with a sloped smile. Thomas asked Old Man why, but he did not respond coherently. Instead, he went on to say the things he did to deserve his death, and further request Thomas continue his work in eliminating the gruesome filth that roamed the Earth. Furthermore, the other thing Old Man requested Thomas do after his demise, was bury him beside his wife, so that they could be together until the end. Thomas tried to refuse, but Old Man did not allow him to. The two confessed brief gratitude before the inevitable became the reality.

On that day, in the winter spring, under the arctic skies, amidst the enchanting snowy fields surrounding Old Man's home, Righteous Authority completed his final hit. He did what Old Man wanted and buried him beside his wife. Both of their graves were sprinkled by the snowy wonder, under the dusk skies, death no longer keeping them apart.

## Personality

Thomas Bright is a motivated man who believes in the greater good of humanity, no matter what he has to do. He is more than willing to fight, kill, and even start a war, but in the end, every action he takes is in the name of ultimately making sure Ark City prospers. While Bright is somewhat obsessed with gaining everlasting peace and liberty, his actions are violent and he loves death and destruction, proving his abilities whenever he can. He is willing to do anything to get peace and end all fighting, no matter how many people he needs to kill, hurt, maim, or emotionally destroy along the way, making him sometimes hypocritical. Righteous Authority is not one for sparing someone. Not since the death of Old Man.

## Powers & Abilities

**Peak Human Condition**: Thomas has achieved peak physical condition in his mission for global peace. He is incredibly strong and tough, being one of the most fit people in the current Ark timeline, as well as sufficiently fast and agile.

* **Peak Human Strength:** Thomas is very strong for a human, having many feats with only his strength. His punch alone has separated a mutated person's skull from their spine. He rammed an armoured soldier with his shield and knocked them 20m backwards. Thomas was strong enough to lift a vehicle onto its side and crush the savage soldiers beneath it.
* **Unnatural Durability**: Righteous Authority is extraordinarily resilient when it comes to combat. During The Battle of The Wastelands, he was hit by a tank, tortured for almost a week non-stop by savage forces, survived being blown up by airstrikes, managed to get up right after being struck by a semi-trailer truck carrying now-extinct wildlife, fought for days inside a No Man's Land-esque pit of absolute violence, and withstood being shot in the side of the head by an ally whom he killed later that year.

## Paraphernalia

**Righteous Shield:** Old Man designed a shield to reflect the symbol of what Righteous Authority stood for. He modeled the emblem after a lightning bolt he saw in the sky when a peculiar Space Oddity flew over his house and deep into the night. The shield is extremely durable, being made up of a complex construct of parts only Old Man knew about.

**Righteous Attire**: Thomas wears a red, blue, and white suit as Righteous Authority, tight-fitting to display his strength, with holsters for his guns, and a picture of a star to crest his chest, showing his patriotism to the white stars amidst the galaxy; neutral to all in their faint glimmer. The stripes beneath the star were the colours of Old Man's shirt when he died. Thomas articulated the fabric so he could forever have Old Man by him in his travels.

## Trivia

* Righteous Authority has a record of over 300 kills in The Battle of The Wastelands.
* He was the second creation Dexpo made for The Arkverse, right after The Messiah.