Saunik

Chris Halin was the lead singer of the heavy metal band, the Dead Zone. During a concert in Perez Park's outdoor amphitheater, a freak summer electrical storm closed in. At the apex of Chris's signature solo wail, a bolt of lightning struck his mic stand. Such a jolt would have killed a normal person, but somehow the resultant shock triggered his latent Sonic mutation. The combinant discharge of both the lightning bolt and the sound stage overload imparted Chris with power over electricity as well.

Chris's band was just taking off, so he tried to hide his gifts, tried to be a 'normal' person. When the Dead Zone got picked up by Stalwart Records, the group was ecstatic! They got a handsome deal with all the trimmings; playing all the best venues throughout Paragon City, a suite in the Hotel Geneva for their exclusive use, and access to WhiteGold Studios, Paragon City’s premiere recording studio overlooking Platinum lake to lay down the tracks for their first professionally produced album.

Unknown to Chris and the band however, Stalwart Records was a front for the Family and was using the Dead Zone to smuggle Supradine across the city. It was easy for them, having been the ones providing all the roadies, sound and light crews for all their shows.

The band itself was, for a time, none the wiser. However, certain things just didn't seem right. The crew seemed cagey, not letting the group help load their equipment before or after the shows. Crates and equipment unfamiliar to the band kept appearing back stage and, when asked about it, were told “not to worry about it”. Certain areas of backstage became off limits to Chris and the gang. Unfamiliar faces kept showing up to work the shows, and when the music began to suffer the band took their problems to their agent in the record company, who assured them he'd "look into it."

That night, after a sold out show in Bell Point the band went to leave and head back to their hotel. They were approached by the roadies, who wanted to know who they'd "been talking to." Uncomfortable but unafraid, Chris and his group confronted them, deciding to put the crew in their place, to wrest control of their band back where it belonged.

Out of nowhere, they were attacked, subdued and taken to an abandoned warehouse in Steel Pier. There Chris was confronted by none other than his agent Lance Boyle, who he'd confided in earlier that day. He was given an "opportunity": play along or watch the band, his crew, and all his dreams destroyed. To show how serious they really were, Boyle ordered Steve Rocklight, the band's drummer, slaughtered right then and there.

Anger swelled up in Chris and he Shrieked in protest. Electricity coursed up and down his body, sending his reeling captors flying and burning the ropes that bound him to the chair. He tried to protect the others in the band, but it was too late; the mobsters opened fire with their Tommy Guns and decimated the rest of his crew; the Dead Zone was no more.

In a rage he Howled, bursting the eardrums of the mobsters around him; they clasped their bloody ears as they reeled in shock. Boyle ran for the door and Chris barreled right after, murder in his now lavender glowing eyes. He tried chasing after, but the agent jumped in a boat and headed away too fast for Chris to follow.

Recovered, the mobsters in the warehouse came running out, Tommy Guns blazing. Outnumbered, Chris had no other choice but to dive into the cold water of the harbor, bullets spraying the surface. He dove deep and was swept into a water treatment inlet, sucked deep under Paragon City and into the sewage treatment plant.

Chris emerged from Downside the next day and spied disturbing headlines. The Family had made it look like the band had died in a drug overdose at a backstage party at their Hotel suite. Making his way to the Hotel confirmed what he feared; the band that hit the scene so quickly and so popularly had been just as quickly discredited as opportunistic drug addicts, stealing money from the record company to support their habit.

The Family was thorough, or so they thought. Believing Chris dead in Independence Port's deep waters, they claimed he'd jumped from the penthouse in a fit of depression at the band’s impending downfall. They even provided a body -- no doubt a drifter, too badly disfigured for positive identification.

Chris knew he had to make them pay. They'd awakened a rage in him, a vibrant hum that resonated to his core. So they believed him dead? Fine! What he had planned would be easier that way he thought, and he abandoned his old life and his old name.

Calling himself Saunik, he vowed to track down and eradicate the Family from Paragon City and extract justice for his friends, starting with Lance Boyle.

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