| Patrick MacEachthighearna | |
|---|---|
| |
| Portrayed by | Eoin Macken |
| Played by | Amjosa |
| In-story stats | |
| Power(s) | Egokinesis |
| Alignment | Neutral |
| Alias | Patêr, Athair, Faðir, Aki Erlendarson, Gaius Patricius, Pàdraig the Scott, Pat, Pat.5 |
| Gender | Variable |
| Age | Ancient |
| Date of birth | Early Aegean Bronze Age |
| Place of birth | Pre-Greek Balkan Peninsula |
| Current Location | Transient |
| Significant other | Many |
| Children | Richard Hutchings |
| Other relatives | David Hutchings (grandson), Amelia Hutchings (granddaughter), Lyranna Hutchings (granddaughter), Brianna Stewart (great-great-great-granddaughter), Abigail Abbot (great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter), Trevor Perry (great-great-great-great-great-grandson) |
Patrick MacEachthighearna is an ancient special with the power to control his own body on a genetic level. He's an immortal and likely one of the oldest evolved humans alive. While his exact age is unknown, he is estimated to be at least 5000 years old. He was also involved with the Company in its early days.
History[]
Early life[]
It's not known exactly where and when Patrick was born, even by himself, but it's believed to have been in a small indigenous pre-Greek farming settlement somewhere on the southern Balkan Peninsula around the beginning of the Aegean Bronze Age, approximately 3000 BCE. Little is known about his early years, but it was a simple life consisting mostly of helping his parents with farming, hunting, animal husbandry and tool making. Everything changed for him though, somewhere around the age of twelve. While out hunting, the child was attacked by a huge boar. As it came charging at him something was triggered within him, and he could feel his body changing. The next few minutes were a blur, but as the others came running the boar was dead, brought down by what appeared to have been a large predator, yet the chil was barely injured. After that it wasn't long before the power showed itself again, this time infront of the entire village. Unable to find a better explanation for the boy's gift, the people of his village worshiped him as a god and their leader. The years passed and the people around him grew old and died, yet he remained a young man, eternally youthful as only a god could be.
Trojan war[]
About a thousand years after his birth, his village was destroyed by the invading Mycaneans, the early Greeks, and he fled as the only survivor. He found his way to Crete where he got involved in the Minoan bronze trade, making a fortune for himself. He features in ancient Greek literature and myth as a hero and demigod, one of the many who fought in the Trojan War, and was deified and worshipped during Classical antiquity. Though it was there, sailing away from the burning ruins of Troy that his life once again changed. Onboard the ship was the wife of some high standing Trojan man, whom he had been awarded. A storm appeared, destroying the ship and killing almost everyone onboard. Had he known about atmokinetics back then he may have realised the true reason for the sudden storm, but perhaps it was good that he didn't. At the time, he was convinced it was his doing. He had thought he had the powers of a god, that he was unbeatable. His hubris had angered the gods, and they had punished him. Washed ashore on a smaller island just south of Lesbos, the shapeshifter decided to abandon his old life, pretending to have perished in the storm along with the rest of the crew and taking on a new name and face.
A new life[]
With his old life left behind, he headed out on a journey to find what fate had planned for him. For several centuries he traveled, seeking out others like him and learning more about his kind, about their gifts, so that he could teach others. Though he was not the first, he took on the role as a patriarch of specials, guiding and watching over the younger, and was known as Patêr, Ancient Greek for father. At some point, during the early days of Classical antiquity around the eigth century BCE, he moved to the Greek colony of Megálē Hellás, or Magna Graecia as the natives called it, in what today is southern Italy. From there, he migrated up to the newly founded city of Rome where he first took the name Gaius Patricius from the Latin word patricius which comes from patres, the plural of the Latin word pater, the meaning the same as in Greek. For some time, he moved between Rome and Greece, finding and guiding young specials until the Roman conquest of Greece in the second century BCE, after which he settled in Rome and managed to work his way to a position of power.
Settling in Britain[]
Little more than a hundred years later he choose to leave Rome though and journey around the Roman Empire in search for other specials. From Thracia, Judaea and Eqypt in the south east to Hispania, Gaul and Germania in the north west. It was in Britannia though that his life, for the third time, changed drastically. For many reasons the shapeshifter choose to leave his life as a Roman behind and joined the Celtic tribe known to the Romans as the Scoti or Scotti, though they called themselves Goídil. They would come sailing from Ireland to perform raids on Britain during and after Roman rule. Once again he came to be seen as a hero, known as Athair, or by Celtic variations of his Roman name, and was written about in legends and myths, most of them long lost by modern day. Though as Ireland was claimed by the rapidly rising monetheistic new religion in the 5th century, he left the lush green island that he'd made his home for the past centuries and headed up to the newly established Gaelic overkingdom of Dál Riata on the western coast of modern day Scotland.
Joining the Norse[]
While he loved Scotland, he only stayed there until shortly after the union of Dál Riata and Pictland. Following the raids on Lindisfarne and Iona in the late 8th century, he left Britain and joined the vikingr, "baylings" or "those of the bay", as they called themselves. So he found himself in Denmark under the rule of King Sigfred in the early 9th century. That's where he met Elinor. She was but a child the first time they met. Sigfred was holding a jólablót, a three-day sacrificial Yule feast where one's horn never ran dry of ale and mead, at his mead hall to please the gods and elves, and the people, mostly the latter. Some of the servant had their children with them as it was common in those days for children to start accompanying and helping their parents during work from the age of six. One girl in particular caught his interest, around seven or eight winters old with fair skin and hair as red as that of the Picts. As soon as he saw her, he knew that she was different, even though she did not know it herself. There was that thing in her blood and flesh that only magical beings like him had. He befriended her and watched over her as he waited for it to show itself and with time it did. For the first time he'd found someone like him, or similar at least, though she was young and inexperienced, only starting to discover that she wasn't like most people. Knowing that she probably wouldn't die anytime in the near future, he left Elinor to figure things out on her own.
Living as a merchant[]
Heading up to Sweden, he settled down in one of the many petty kingdoms of the area of Götaland, or Gothia, inhabited by the tribe known as the götar or geats. Using the name Áki Erlendarson, he lead the relatively peaceful life of a farmer like most Norsemen. Like most Norsemen he also choose to go a-viking for a few years, leaving his wife and children to run the farm while he travelled to the town of Birka where he could trade with merchants from all over Europe, and even the Orient, exchanging fur, iron, horns and amber for silver coins which he could melt and make jewelry from, or use to buy other goods such as thralls, silk, spices, wine and more jewelry. On his second journey, he travelled further east on the river trading routs of Eastern Europe as one of the Varangians, raiding Slavic settlements along the way. For the first time in almost a thousand years, Patrick set foot in his country of origin, by then part of the Byzantine Empire. After a year or two of trading he turned back, raiding some more Slavic settlements along the rivers before he reached his home. For a few years he once again lived the peaceful life of a farmer, watching his children grow up and get married during their mid-teens. Then it was time to leave that life behind, as people at that time rarely lived to the age of thirty, and hardly ever to their forties, especially in the case of men.
To Vinland[]
Leaving Sweden, he headed up to Norway, one of the most beautiful places he'd seen in his many years, at least as beautiful as Scotland. From there he moved on to Iceland where he settled down for some time until 986 CE, when Eiríkr inn rauði, Erik the Red, returned from his exile with news of a country in the west which he called Grœnland "greenland". Along with many of the poor of Iceland, Patrick travelled to the new colonies, which were nothing like the name implied. Some 26 years later, he joined the expeditions of Leifr Eiríksson as he journeyed further west looking for the land Bjarni Herjólfsson had spotted while getting lost on his way to Greenland. They first reached a land covered with flat stones, which the vikings named Helluland "Land of Flat Stones", now known as Baffin Island. South of that they found a land covered with forests, the coast of modern day Labrador, which they named Markland "forestland". Even further south they found more land, modern day Newfoundland and bits of surrounding areas, which came to be known as Vinland "wine-land" because grapevines grew there naturally. It is said that the belief in werewolves and shapeshifters came to North America with the Norse, though the colonies only lasted about a decade due to conflicts with the natives, known to the vikings as the skrælingar. Rather than staying on Greenland, Patrick choose to sail back to Scandinavia, which by then had been completely Christianised.
Witch hunts[]
Quite soon afterwards, Patrick returned to Britain, which had been conquered by the Danes in 1015 and inhabited by a large amount of Danish settlers since the 9th century. Though the English eventually reclaimed the country, the settlers stayed and eventually came to be seen as English. Patrick didn't stay long in England though, leaving the country shortly after the country was conquered by fourth generation viking descendants from France. The shapeshifter headed up to Scotland where he later fought in the Wars for Scottish Independence in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. Thing were changing though. It had long been common knowledge that some people possessed supernatural abilities which were sometimes used to protect the people, but from the 15th century and onwards it came to be seen as a sign of a pact between the people with supernatural abilities and Satan. A growing fear and hatred emerged, leading to the witch-hunts. Travelling around Europe, Patrick tried to save as many as possible, assisting groups of specials who worked together for survival. The groups were small and scarce though, and there was only so much one man could do. Some fifty thousand people died, though not all of them had powers, especially in the later days. By the 18th century the witch-hunts came to an end as people stopped believing in the existance of powered individuals and withcraft because they no longer saw any. The special population in Europe and the American colonies had been decimated, and those who remained hid themselves from the world out of fear. Individuals with powers became nothing but a myth, a thing of fairytales.
In the New world[]
For a long time it remained that way. The people moved on, unaware of the specials living amongst them. Old beliefs gave way for science, and with the coming of Darwin's theory of evolution and Mendel's studies of genetics and inheritence, Patrick started to figure out more about the true reasons behind his ability, other than the old explanation of magic or divine powers. Towards the end of the 19th century he decided to leave Europe and migrated to America, passing through Ellis Island some time in the early 1890s. For a few years he travelled around America before heading to Europe to fight in the Great War in 1914. He then went back to America, only to once again go back to fight in the Second World War little more than two decades later, but it was the last war he participated in. Some time afterwards, the US government found out about the existance of specials and started putting them in internment camps, though the Coyote Sands massacre brought an end to it. When a group of specials cme together some sixteen years later with the purpose of preventing such a thing from ever happening again, Patrick quickly joined, becoming an agent for the Company shortly after it's foundation in 1977. For nearly twenty years he worked for them, and though they did keep the existance of specials hidden from the public, their methods for doing so were questionable, and he found himself disagreeing with the whole end-justifies-the-means thing they had going on. As he, at the time a she, got pregnant in the late 80s he choose to keep it from the Company, hiding the child in the care of some friends in England.
New York bomb threat[]
For a time he worked against the Company from within, helping some specials escape. They eventually found out about it though, whereupon he caused a mess and fled, knowing full well what they would do to a traitor like him. The next ten years he lived in hiding, occasionally visiting his son, occasionally causing trouble for the Company. In 2008 he founded a safe haven where specials could stay and practice in the control and usage of their abilities. Patrick even brought his son over from England, and acted surrogate mother for his children, though he was forced to abandon the Institute shortly after their birth following his apparent death in the New York Bombthreat as he injected himself with the poison-filled nanobots intended for Danny Wallace, seemingly giving his life to stop the bomb. After that he went back into hiding, reemerging first when the government performed a raid on the Institute, capturing many of the inhabitants and locking them up in Building 26, including his son. He participated in the Jail Break, helping the once imprisoned specials out of the building into freedom.
April 4th[]
After those events he once again went on the run, bringing his son with him, though Ricky eventually choose to settle down. For a time he lived quietly, watching over his family and helping Ricky with the children. Then came April 4th. Knowing full well what it was bound to lead to Patrick sent his son, who was experiencing relationship problems at the time, to a safe location outside the US, telling him not to let anyone know about his whereabouts for his safety and the children's. With both the government and the Company having seen him on several occasions, the latter probably having a Level 5 cell with his name on it after all the trouble he'd caused them over the years, his face at the time was too well known. For that reason he took on a new appearance and identity, hiding in plain sight by using his acting skills to land a role in a new prime time TV show as he watched and waited for the inevitable to happen.
Abilities[]
Egokinesis[]
(See Egokinesis)
Patrick possesses a power he refers to as Egokinesis, the power to control and alter every aspect of his own being. Basically, his power is a very advanced form of shapeshifting that allows him to change not just his external appearance, but the very anatomy and structure of his body all the way down to the molecules that it's made off. Obviously, Patrick is a deft shapeshifter, capable of taking on almost any form imaginable, within certain limits. When shapeshifting, his anatomy and DNA changes so that he, in a way, literally becomes what he shapeshifts into, be it people or animals. This means that if he's imitating another human being, he'll be practically impossible to tell from the original. He does this through some form of unconscious DNA reading which allows him to know and imitate the genetic code of others. It also allows him to tell if they're special. Patrick could choose to only alter parts of his body at a time, for example increase his muscle mass and thus increase his strength to some level, grow an extra limb or change his hair colour.
Through his control of his own molecules, Patrick can also use his power to control his own metabolism and bodily functions to, among other things, speed up the regeneration and duplication of cells, boost his immune system and metabolise poisons, drugs or other substances which enter his system, such as alcohol. He could also speed up the rate at which he looses weight or builds muscle, as well as do a few fancy things with hormones. Patrick is hard to kill due to the nature of his power as he has to be able to survive his very anatomy changing, with organs being broken down and rebuilt, or moved around his body, temporarily stopping bodily functions. His brain and body has thus been adapted to be slightly more durable and resilient than most and can withstand and survive the effects of severe injury and even a cessation of vital functions for some time, but not indefinitely. He could survive and recover from wounds that no normal human would recover from, if allowed to heal himself.
Patrick isn't really that powerful. He can't level cities or kill people with a touch or anything like that. His power only affects him, and him alone. Patrick can assume the form of any living being larger than a kitten but smaller than a rhino with a sufficient nervous system, meaning that he could not become a plant, an insect or anything like that, though he can imitate some of their biological processes, possibly using some kind of photosynthesis or chemosynthesis to increase his mass. He can only do what is more or less biologically possible though. The parts of his DNA that determine his power never change, since he would then lose his original power and assume whatever powers his new form would have mid-change, right when his very anatomy is changing, resulting in almost certain death. There's often both pros and cons with changes to his body. For example, to become really strong he would need the physique of a professional body builder, which would also make him very heavy and clumsy, obviously.
Unlike a regenator, Patrick doesn't heal from wounds automatically. He could speed up his healing, but it requires conscious effort, and is still many times slower. Depending on the severity of the wound, it could take from a few minutes to days, or even weeks before it's completely healed. Injuries still affect and weaken him like they would any other, meaning that he could not get up and continue fighting after being stabbed or having his leg broken or something like that. An ordinary wound could kill him if left untreated and prevented from healing, but it would take longer than normal. Although Patrick's brain could make it longer than most without oxygen, it cannot survive indefinitely, and would die within an hour without a heart beat and breathing. Like with all specials, Patrick's brain is his greatest weakness since that's where his power originates. He could be killed instantly by destroying that infamous spot, and unlike a regenator he would not come back to life if an object stuck there was removed. Another easy way to make sure he dies would be by either removing his brain through beheading or Sylar-esque brain removal, or by completely destroying his brain and/or body to the point where he couldn't possibly heal, such as by burning his body to ash, vaporising it, or blowing it to smithereens. Powers that don't directly rely on physical damage, such as life force related powers and psychic powers affect him the same way they do anyone else.
Pat.5[]
Pat.5 was the nickname given by RPers to a supposed clone created by Patrick. During the original Patrick's pregnancy, Pat.5 ran the Institute for him and took his place at important events, such as the New York bomb threat. With the whole of New York at risk, Pat.5 choose to sacrifice himself, injecting himself with the poison filled nanobots intended for Danny Wallace and seemingly died.
Memorable Quotes[]
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Trivia[]
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