Microstory 178: Straton Giles

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One thing about Bellevue was that it was conceived, not as merely a super team composed of people with special abilities, but as an organization. The purpose of this organization was not always clear, but its founder envisioned it being international, and used to help the world in a myriad of ways. That the majority of original members were anomalies was always intended to be more a jumping off point, and less of an archetype. The perfect example of the founder’s ideas was Straton Giles. He had no special ability, and was not related to someone who did. He had a prior relationship with Milo Chombers, but this was a coincidence that was not known to others until his first day. He was removed from prison by the powerful Basil Ploutos through a series of threats, legal loopholes, and fraud. The Keystone knew that if they were going to establish something that in any way resembled a law enforcement agency, they would need to learn unorthodox skills; bonus points for finding someone who didn’t need to be paid. Straton fell into a life of crime as a natural progression from living in poverty his entire life. He never hurt anyone, and he only ever stole from the corrupt, but the older he became, the bolder he became. It was only a matter of time before he was caught, and this happened about a year before Bellevue’s founding. He kept his head down while locked up, and didn’t start trouble with the other convicts. He was actually friends with Hector Cubit; rather, he was as close to a court marshall as a criminal possibly could be. There was some resistance to Straton joining the team from its other early members; especially Cosmo Drexler. Jaklyn Simonds was ordered to lock him in the astral plane every night, which was impossible to escape. But he eventually endeared himself to the others, and proved himself worthy of being part of the group. Though his position was later replaced by more educated professionals of the non-academic fields, he worked well as a proof of concept, showing that learning street skills was just as important as understanding how anomaly abilities worked.