Pete Wisdom

Pete Wisdom is the current director of operations for X-Force - as close as they get to a leader, which isn't very - and the former head of Intelligence for the X-Men. He works secretly out of the Snow Valley Memorial Center for Mutant Affairs.

Details

Character Journal: x_pete

Real Name: Peter Paul Winston Wisdom

Codename: None

Aliases: Paul Solomon, presumably a number of others as yet unrevealed.

First Appearance: May 9th, 2003

Date of Birth: 19th May 1969

Place of Birth: Colchester, Essex, UK.

Citizenship: British

Relatives: Paul Wisdom (father) (deceased), Julia Wisdom (mother) (deceased), Romany Wisdom (sister)

Education: No formal qualifications - droppped out of school age 15. Educated by British Army and Intelligence.

Relationship Status: Seeing Domino although events conspire to keep them in separate countries a lot of the time.

Occupation: Unofficial dir. ops. for Snow Valley

Team Affiliation: X-Force

Biography

Childhood

Pete was more-or-less raised by his older sister, Romany. His parents divorced when he was very young, and his mother moved to the town of Hungerford (where she was later killed by the spree killer, Michael Ryan). Although his their father retained custody of the children, he was generally obsessed with his work for department A-13, the Metropolitant police department of Unusual Death, and largely left Romany (a teenager at the time) to take care of Pete.

At some point in his childhood, Pete expressed the desire to become a policeman himself, and his father informed him in no uncertain terms that he would not allow his son to fuck up his life in the manner his old man had. Pete's reponse was deliquent behaviour, and he droppped out of school age 15, in favour of petty crime and drug taking.

British Intel

He was eventually picked up (aged 18) by an ultra-secret division of British intelligence (he himself has never named it, preferring to simply say that he worked for British Intel), which specialised in what they termed "extra-normal" operations - covert opertation dealing with esoteric activity of various origins - mutant, mystic and technological. He was given a choice between working for them or prison, and opted to work for them. He's known to have recieved extensive training in intelligence analysis, assassination, specifically geared toward neutralising superhuman threat, as well as covert operations, small unit command, and tactics.

He turned out to have a particular aptitude for the work, displaying a remarkable ability to plan commit often quite henious acts, quickly and efficiently, without much regard for collateral damage.

Unemployment

Pete worked for British Intel for a little over ten years (it was during this period he first met Charles Xavier, as was assigned as the British government's liason with Xavier's School), and while his initially loved the work, he grew more disillusioned over time, both with the people he worked for, and the sort of work he did. In September 2003, he was fired, partly over the concerns he raised about several traumatic operations he'd been part of earlier in the year, and partly over the fuss he raised over the British Government's interference in Dr. Moira MacTaggart's Muir Island Research Facility.

Living At The X-Mansion

Pete relocated to the states, where he took up a post as Guidance Counsellor at Xavier's School, a cover for his work running an intel gathering network for Charles. Shortly after ariving there, his sister Romany sent her young charge Amanda Sefton to the school, as the only place in the world equipped to cope with her rather unusual mutation. Pete recognised a lot of his younger self in the girl, and took her under his wing.

Hellfire

As a result of Amanda's relationship with Manuel de la Rocha, and having crossed swords with Romany during the events of Asgard, and unable to strike at her, Pete or Amanda Alphonso de la Rocha had Pete's father killed in retaliation for the spike Amanda had put in his plans for his estranged son.

Where Pete discovered this, he quit Xavier's, intending to kill Alphonso. He quit partly out of moral conflict, partly so as not to bring any retribution from the Hellfire Club down on the school, and partly because he had realised how much his association with Xavier's had damaged his reputation as a frightening figure in the world of espionage and unscrupulous power brokers in which he had previously moved - a repuation on which he felt his family's safety rested, and which would only be restored is he demonstrated swiftly and conclusively that he was still willing to kill anyone that acted against him, and he went to his old friend Emma Frost in secret for help and resources. She agreed on the basis that as White Queen of the Hellfire Club, she stood to gain from Alphonso's removal, especially if it was at the hands on an (ostensibly) independent party.

In the end, Pete did not kill Alphonso, although it was made to look like he had, and he used the now seemingly-permanent separation from Xavier's and the X-men in infiltrate the Hellfire Club (inter-court murder being more acceptable to them than an assault from outside), filling the vacant space as White King. The only people aware of the deception were Alison Blaire and Charles Xavier, although Domino also knew the truth, but agreed to have it hidden with a false memory.

He remained in place as White King for eight months, gathering information on the Club's illeagal activities, and putting himself in a position to remove them them as a threat.

Matters came to a head during Selene's attempt to recruit Amanda to the Hellfire Club, when Pete revealed his deception by taking Selene out of the picture permanently, using materials provided by Alison, Dr Strange and Romany, and returned to the mansion.

Domino had been kidnapped in the intervening period, but Pete and Nathan were able to rescue her (with the help of Alison and Cain Marko) and restore her memories.

The Path To X-Force

After several quiet months, recovering mentally and physically from the toll the previous year had taken on him, Pete found himself needing to rescue Romany from a small conspiracy within the British government, and left the mansion for good, on the basis that the sort of work he was good at and wanted to do was of the sort that could bring retribution down on Xavier's. He recruited a small group of people to help him rescue Romany, and seeing how effective they were, suggested that they keep working together to do the sort of work he felt needed doing. Other people have since called the group X-Force a name he strongly resists as "bloody stupid".

Physical Characteristics

Height: 6ft 1in

Weight: 12 stone 8 pounds.

Eyes: Blue

Hair: Black

Other Features: Various combat scars.

Powers

Wisdom is a mutant energy caster with an unusal level of control over his gifts - specifically, he can emit heat energy from any part of his body - the point of origin can in fact be at any point inside an aura extending about two inches from his skin. He has absolute control over how far this energy extends from his body, and while the energy itself is extremely hot, and will cut through almost anything, the heat disappates to almost nothing over a distance of about two inches from wherever Pete directs it.

Pete has been seen to wrap himself in an aura made from this energy, using it as a combination of shield and device to augment his hand-to-hand power. He has also used his power like a small atom bomb, causing as solid dome of eergy to extend in all directions from his body for a radius of about half a mile.

While Pete does eat a lot, and remain thin, it's not beyond the bounds of normal hjuman possibility, the source of this energy remains largely unknown - he appears to a walking violation of the laws of thermodynamics, as aside from more advanced stunts requiring a certain amount of concentration, using his powers appears to take no toll on him whatsoever, no matter the extent.

Equipment

Cigarettes.

Trivia

Pete speaks half a dozen langauges, including Russian, French and Mandarin. His accent is atrocious in all of them.

Pete sleeps an average of four to five hours a night.

He has a complete blindspot for food. There's nothing he particularly dislikes, and he does *enjoy* food, and can tell good from bad, but if you ask him what he ate half an hour after he ate it, he almost certainly won't remember.

Has at some point in the past had a more-or-less casual physical relationship with Emma Frost. The two remain on good terms, although both exercise a certain professional caution around one another.

Plots

X-Men Mission: Syria

British Invasion

Daddy's Girl

X-Men Mission: Wildchild

Hellfire and Damnation

Lost In The Woods

Operation: Opening Salvo

Meta

Player: Alasdair Watson

E-mail: firstname at firstname dot biz - I don't make my email address any clearer than that on any non-secure system, so please don't edit it.

AIM: N/A

Player Icon Base: Clive Owen, but only if he's wearing the right kind of suit.

Meta Trivia His sister Romany's ghostly boyfriend is named Jack Regan, after the character from the The Sweeney on which Warren Ellis reported based Pete.