Russel Portis

Russel “Rusty” Portis

Russel could never really understand his lot in life. He was always calm, cool, and collected. Some would confuse his demeanor for uncaring. Even though his father, Dr. Dexter Portis, was a brilliant cybernetics specialist and engineer, his research could never get the funding. Dr. Vegapunk was always one step ahead of him.

At birth, destiny was already pushing its heel to Russel’s throat. At a young age he was diagnosed with osteomenos, a degenerative bone disease, the same one that took his mother. He was frail and slow his whole life, and as he grew up, he became closer and closer to death.

Hell-bent on ensuring he wouldn’t lose his only son the same way he lost his wife, Dr. Portis dedicated his life to finding a cure. Years of failure brought him to the brink of madness until he read a report about Vegapunk’s new technological breakthrough. The Pacisifista!  Dexter may not be able to cure his son’s bone disease, but if he didn’t have bones to degenerate, maybe he could survive or even thrive.

Russel was elated to be able to assist his father in his experiments. He full understood the risks and what the end goal would ultimately entail. They didn’t call Dr. Portis a genius for no reason though and he managed to replace all of Russel’s bones with a wapometal skeleton. While ultimately a success, the procedure wasn’t without its complications. The bones in Russel’s hands were just too small for Dexter to replace without severely damaging his tendons and skin, so he instead built him completely robotic hands. Russel was ultimately cured, and he was much more than a human now. He was super strong, fast, and durable! And with the shape changing qualities of wapometal, he would be able to grow up like a normal kid!

Sadly, the news of Russel’s newfound lease on life soon reached the powers that be and Vegapunk himself came down to see the results. They quickly confused Russel’s calm and thorough attitude as some sort of programming. “I’ve seen this with Bartholomew Kuma! Your son isn’t alive anymore! You’re a monster!”

Russel tried to explain that he volunteered for the procedure but Vegapunk and the Marines shut down Dexter’s lab and put a black mark on his name. These people had no vision, no sense of scope of what his father was doing! Who wouldn’t want to be better than they are? In order to try and escape this nightmare, they moved to Karate Island in the south blue, but the Marine base there poses plenty of opportunities to show how awful people are.

Dexter spent his days from then on doing nothing but drinking and sulking around the house. No one would hire him for anything but menial labor. His depression was slowly killing him and Rusty fears he’ll never recover. Russel does mostly odd jobs around town to help scrape by. His improved strength and endurance really help.

To kill time between jobs, Russel started exploring their new island home. There’s a quaint little monastery on a hill past the forest that encircles their town, with a single monk maintaining the holy grounds. One day while exploring the monastery, the monk approached Russel and introduced himself.

“Hello there, my name is Shi Yan Du. I’ve seen you around here a few times recently and you have a very strange energy about you! It’s almost as if you’re not entirely human.” The two immediately hit it off and Shi Yan Du offered to teach Russel how to control his strength and defend himself. The Way of the Thousand Fists is a very fluid and smooth fighting style, and you’d think someone who was practically a robot wouldn’t be able to move in such way. Thank goodness Dexter was ahead of his time! Other than Russel’s hands and a small metal port above his shoulder where he keeps his robotic skeleton fueled up, he’s completely indistinguishable from a regular human. He usually wears gloves to keep from drawing unnecessary attention to himself.

As time passed, Russel was able to make friends on the island. They call him Rusty because of his red hair. An amusing nickname considering he’s also a cyborg; because of his father’s reputation and your average Marine’s ego, they’ve had may scrapes with the base and nobles on the island, but always manage to come out on top or get away before having to face the big guns.

The Nobles on the island overtax the rest of the citizens of the island and the Marines frequently hustle the small businesses for free food or supplies with the threat of military force. To make things worse, Rusty now has a 50,000 berry bounty on his head. It isn’t much and Rusty suspects Vegapunk actually reviewed his father’s work and now wants the tech for himself. Thankfully, the only picture they had was from when he was a small boy, so not many people recognize him.

Rusty plans on getting off of the island with his best friend Anna, and set sail to find out what the world really has to offer. He wants to become renowned and clear his family name - to show people his father’s great vision! He will show the world the gift his father gave, and make him proud.