Microstory 1224: Vito Bulgari

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Vito Bulgari was born on Durus in 2161, which meant he had no recollection of how the world was during the phallocratic state. He was never taught to distrust women, or disrespect people in general. To him, such notions belonged in the past, and he had no use for them. But his outlook on what makes a decent society wasn’t the only thing different about him. After the Mage Protectorate fell, devastated by the final battle against the temporal monsters, people were only ever born with weak powers, if any. They were deemed mage remnants, and weren’t generally strong enough to do much good with their abilities. Once Hokusai Gimura saved the planet from colliding with Earth, however, something changed. While a few full paramounts were born with all the strength that they would have had if they were regular choosing ones on Earth, it did not become common until Vito’s generation. Like Alyssa McIver and Joanna Zegers, Vito had the ability to turn invisible. His power fell somewhere in the middle of those two. He could turn visible whenever he wanted, and also make other people and objects visible, but he wasn’t capable of making them look like other things. Alyssa was an illusionist, who could substitute whatever she wanted in place of whatever was actually there, while Vito was only able to make something look like it wasn’t there at all. When the small interstellar ship, The Elizabeth Warren was preparing to return to Earth, a movement formed on Durus, of people who felt entitled to become passengers. Despite their inappropriate means of making their desire known, many of them were ultimately accepted into the vessel. Space was made to accommodate them using pocket dimensions. Vito was not one of these people. He did not even hear about it until the future-passengers had taken some of the crew hostage in order to force the issue. He applied for transport with the Durune government once he discovered it to be a possibility. The crew of the ship was so impressed with him for having been the only person in the entire world to think of that, so they let him in as well. They even excluded another hopeful passenger, just to make room. Vito went on to have an adventurous life. His ability—and abilities, once he was transformed into something greater—got him into trouble as often as they got him out of it, but he never used them for selfish reasons, or to harm the innocent. His decency and compassion earned him the role of second-in-command of a special machine that could travel to other universes. Captain Cabral felt that he was the only one who could be trusted with the responsibility, and he did not let her down. He went on to be a major force for change, taking down more white monsters by himself across the bulkverse than anyone could count. He became a legend on many worlds as a hero.