Preston Harper/Plaguewing: 13-year old Preston Harper is a testament to the depravity Project: G.E.M has sunk too. Once an average middle school student trying to make friends and impress the girl he liked, the thing that made Preston stand out above all else was his relentless desire to see the world; there had to be SOMETHING that made the planet awesome. Project: G.E.M granted him his wish… just not in the way he wanted.
Now, Preston is a frail and sickly husk kept alive by pills and life support, isolated from his fellow villains to keep the diseases ravaging his body from infecting everyone else. The only time he’s ever released is at night, and what comes stumbling out of his cell… isn’t him; all that remains is a screeching, stinking horror of flesh and teeth and wings, that only exists to main and infect everyone it can with diseases they don’t have cures for. Preston can’t remember anything that happens in those nights. But he DOES remember the days where he wakes up. Every day, he’s crushed under the realization that the people dying from maggots and sickness are all suffering because of him.
Preston Harper/Plaguewing’s Toolkit is activated by the light of the full moon; when exposed to moonlight, he will transform into a massive, bat-like creature while his mind regresses to a feral animal state; in this form, his senses, agility, and balance are amplified, gains echolocation abilities, and fly. His most dangerous power, however, is his ability to control disease; he constantly generates a cloud of pathogens around him and has enough brainpower to use them offensively; he can decide how potent his diseases are and has control over all maladies, even ones from other worlds.
In a twisted bit of irony, Preston Harper’s price for becoming a Paradigm was the weakening of his own immune system; he is more susceptible to getting sick and must constantly take medication to keep himself alive.
