The Belligerent

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**The Belligerent** is the right-hand man of Poe Ledsa, who is the founder and leader of the Sword of Masculinity.

## Biography

### The warlord ascending

#### Cloning a new apprentice

As the Belligerent’s secret project continued to develop through trial and error, one clone in particular showed a great deal of promise. The clone progressed far enough in his training that the Belligerent considered dispatching him to China to execute Ronald Koda. Although he was impressed with the clone’s progress, he knew that this subject was just as troubled by Dero’s memories as all of the other clones had been. In order to see if the clone was truly strong enough to overcome his template’s emotions, the Belligerent provided the clone with a challenge to destroy NoHead Trenists that had taken on the holographic appearance of police officers. Although the clone easily destroyed the officers, sparing no feelings for the organization that his progenitor helped to create, he was suddenly dumbfounded by the robot that had taken on the image of a woman he recognized as Annabeth Black. When the Belligerent commanded the clone to strike her down and demanded that he hate that which Dero loved, the clone struggled to obey, but ultimately refused. Disappointed with yet another failure, the Dark mutant revealed to the confused clone the fact that he had tried many times before to create a perfect version of his original apprentice, only to fail when it came to purging them of Dero’s emotional imprints. Despite the successful growth and progress of a different clone of Dero, the Belligerent lied to the clone, telling him that the accelerated cloning process was still imperfect. Before the Belligerent could rectify his mistake by killing his latest failed experiment, the clone unleashed a blast of lightning at his master after receiving a vision of the Belligerent’s first betrayal of the original Dero. While the Belligerent was momentarily dazed by the attack, the clone blasted a hole through a wall and jumped outside in order to escape. In response, the Belligerent alerted the cloning facility’s garrison and commanded them to kill the clone but none of the guards succeeded. With his forces having little to no success in killing or stalling the clone, the Belligerent moved to intercept him before he could escape. The Belligerent was too late however, and the clone stole his N-66 skyfighter and escaped from California. During the clone’s travels, he became known by the codename of X1 after refusing to go by his progenitor’s birth name.

#### Hiring a bounty hunter

"*He has a healthy head start."
"Find the women and bring them to me. He will follow."
"I’ll need a squadron of robot soldiers. They won’t be coming back."
"The NoHeads will provide whatever you require.*"
―Torin X and the Belligerent[src]Shortly after the clone’s escape, the Belligerent contacted Torin X, a bounty hunter whose skills he knew would make her a reliable asset to his master. When Torin arrived in California, she surveyed the damage to Santa Cruz and concluded that it would take some time to discover X1’s whereabouts. Knowing that the bounty hunter would never be able to capture or defeat X1 directly, the Belligerent commanded Torin to abduct Annabeth Black, a valuable member of the NoHeads. Since the clone had inherited his template’s emotional attachment to Annabeth, the Belligerent anticipated that the clone would never be able to resist returning to California to save Annabeth Black.

Despite her own talents, Torin knew that she was not capable of single-handedly assaulting the NoHead Base and abducting an extremely powerful (albeit somewhat undeveloped) Dark mutant all on her own. To that end, she requested that the Belligerent provide her with enough F7 war robots to aid her in completing her mission, though she lacked confidence in the troopers’ ability to survive. The Belligerent’s only concern was bringing the clone back to California for Poe Ledsa, regardless of how many resources he had to use to achieve this goal. As such, the Belligerent provided Torin with a far greater and more capable force than she had requested, including Terror Troopers, TDBs, Terror Biobots, and a Terror Walker.

Around this time, the Belligerent was training another clone that showed a great deal of potential. Unsurprisingly, this clone inherited the same disturbing memories and emotions of his genetic template just like his brothers before him. Upon being released from his cloning tank, the clone was confronted by Dero’s memories of Annabeth and Calypso Pourkarim, thus causing the clone to ask about their whereabouts. The Belligerent simply stated that the two girls were irrelevant, and all that mattered was the training that lay ahead for the clone. Even though the clone was determined to not fail his Master, it didn’t stop him from becoming curious about the exact number of clones that came before him, or from wondering about what his progenitor was like as a person before he died. The Belligerent dismissed the clone’s questions as pointless curiosity. To the amazement of both the lead cloning technician and the Belligerent, the clone was gradually able to compartmentalize his template’s memories while forming new ones of his own. By doing so, the clone had come to know for certain that he was a copy and that the original Dero was truly dead. The clone understood that he had succeeded where all of the clones failed before him, and that he was well on his way to fulfilling the purpose of his creation — much to the Belligerent’s delight.

#### Battle of California

"*Your training made me strong enough to escape you, not obey you."
"Yet here you are. My deadliest craftsmanship."
"You lie! You never wanted this. You can't have. Once the girls have been rescued, your facility will be destroyed. You with it, if there's any justice."
"There is no justice in this universe. Only power.*"
―X1 and Poe Ledsa[src]
When Torin returned to Santa Cruz with both Calypso Pourkarim and Annabeth Black as her prisoners, Poe Ledsa and the Belligerent greeted all three of them in person. Although he was slightly tempted to summarily execute Annabeth for her loyalty to the NoHeads, the revolutionist maintained his focus on using Annabeth as bait to lure Dero’s wayward clone back to California. Accompanied by a squad of robot soldiers, the Belligerent and his prisoners proceeded to a tower located at the top of the cloning facility. While the clone made his way to the top of the facility, killing all forces in his way, the Belligerent secured Pourkarim in the tower, tightened Black’s bonds, and moved to confront his former apprentice. Within the cloning facility, the Belligerent and X1 engaged in a duel.

While X1 pressed his attack and demanded to know where Pourkarim and Black were, the Belligerent stood his ground against the clone. Having learned his lesson after nearly being killed by Dero, the Belligerent refrained from the same sort of reckless offense that he utilized against Dero. He fought more defensively and cautiously, knowing that the cloned Dero was not to be taken lightly. In order to stall and demoralize X1, the Belligerent unleashed various imperfect clones of Dero and commanded them to attack their renegade brother. X1 was shocked to see that there were other clones of Dero besides himself, and realized that he was wrong in believing that Ledsa had lied about creating other clones before him. These clones however, presented no real threat to X1, and he easily dispatched them.

After defeating the aberrant clones, X1 pursued the Belligerent all the way to the cloning tower where he found Annabeth Black and Calypso Pourkarim, both at the Belligerent’s mercy. The mutant elevated Annabeth off of the ground and began choking her through the Darkness. The Belligerent gave the clone a final chance to surrender, or watch as he killed Annabeth. Overwhelmed with fear and concern for Annabeth’s life, X1 dropped his swords and obeyed, promising to serve the Dark mutant once more as long as Annabeth remained unharmed and Pourkarim was given the same. Satisfied, the Belligerent released Black from his grip and commanded the clone to kill General Koda. With nothing but silent compliance from the clone, the Belligerent told X1 that he would go on to become fully immersed in the Darkness and that he would execute the police; resistance or failure to meet any of the Belligerent’s expectations would cost Black her life.

#### Finishing the duel

"*It is our destiny to take over the opposing sex. You and me, together.*"
―The Belligerent to X1[src]
However, Black rebounded and attempted to assassinate the Belligerent, but he narrowly dodged her strike, turning her attempted death blow into a gash on his breast. In retaliation, the Belligerent blasted Black out of the tower, causing her to fall on a landing platform. The Belligerent then hurled Pourkarim after her out of sheer spite, resulting in her losing consciousness. In a rage, X1 grabbed both of his sabers and attacked the Belligerent, only to be thrown out of the tower as well. Before he could get to his friends, the Belligerent leaped out of the tower and landed on the platform, purposely standing between the clone and the girls. Although initially X1 could not understand why the Belligerent would risk his life by damaging or even destroying the two tools he could use to control him, the clone came to believe that the Belligerent had wanted Annabeth Black and Calypso Pourkarim dead all along. By killing them, Ledsa intended to remove X1’s only reason for resisting his purpose as a follower of the Sword of Masculinity, thus causing X1 to fall headlong back into the fold of the Darkness.

As the two engaged in combat once more, the Belligerent tried to convince the clone to rise above his concern for Pourkarim and Black, stating that their lives were meaningless and that her death fueled his strength in the Darkness. He reminded the clone that his feelings for the woman were counterfeit, nothing more than the emotional imprints left behind by a man who was no longer even alive.

The battle nearly ended when the Belligerent managed to disarm X1 and destroy his swords. The Belligerent taunted his weaponless opponent, telling him he had one last chance to surrender, or he would die. X1 appeared to capitulate and the Belligerent, believing the fight was over, dropped his guard. What the Belligerent didn’t know however, was that X1 had been waiting for just such an opportunity. As soon as the Belligerent lowered his guard, X1 absorbed a lightning bolt from a nearby lightning rod and used it in conjunction with his own powers to unleash an extremely powerful electrical blast at the Belligerent. The blast hit the Belligerent’s busom, directly striking the gash that Annabeth had carved into it with her earlier surprise attack. The Belligerent was injured by the lightning to the point where he could no longer defend himself, and X1 used the opportunity to telekinetically pull the Belligerent’s sword from his hand. The Belligerent fell to one knee as X1 swept the Belligerent’s own sword up at his throat. He awkwardly formed his hands into fists before they opened to expose his palms as a shaky gesture of surrender, with him being arrested thereafter.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `TM`

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