David Killian

David Patrick Killian, also known as The Fabulous Quickshot, is a hereditary metahuman and leader of the New Guardians superhero team. David is the most recent member of the Quickshot superhero legacy, inheriting the incredible speed, regeneration, and reflexes of his forebears as well as being trained from a young age to be an expert marksman.

History
David was born in the area that was previously known as Union City, very soon before the Millennium Incident that resulted in the city needing to be rebuilt as New Unity City. The Killians were among the first to settle in New Unity, almost immediately after construction on the city's infrastructure was completed.

Early Life
David's early life was spent almost entirely in the company of other metahumans; after his mother's death during his younger brother's birth, his father couldn't leave the two boys at home alone, and so the Guard's headquarters became their nursery, the Guard their caretakers. Throughout David's early childhood, he came to view the entire roster of the Guard as family,

Training
David's powers of super speed and increased learning capabilities manifested at the age of 6, a full two years earlier than his brother Malcolm's would and indeed the earliest of any member of the Killian family thus far. As such, his training began not long after, overseen primarily by his grandfather, Michael Killian, and supplemented in turn by various members of the Guard when available.

Under Michael's tutelage, David learned sharpshooting and how to control his speed, though his own earnestness can still be his undoing in that regard; he is anxious to prove himself worthy of his legacy, which can lead to him pushing himself to attain higher and higher speeds, a dangerous prospect at his stage in development.

The Killian family's hereditary speed also brings with it capabilities of reading and learning at superhuman speeds. Under the tutelage of the Guard's science officers, David also learned Greek, Latin, French, and Cantonese, as well as a basic level of certification in medical aid and other scientific endeavors.

The Death of Malcolm Killian
While David seemed to excel in every area he was tested on, his younger brother Malcolm seemed to notably lag behind. Malcolm got his powers two years later than David had, and seemed to lack the same acuity for absorbing information that had been typical of their family thus far. These shortcomings drove Malcolm to intensify his training with marksman weapons, particularly the firearms that their grandfather had wielded during the war.

Despite eventually outpacing David in the realm of marksmanship, Malcolm seemed dissatisfied with the way his brother seemed to outshine him in every other arena. Desperate for affirmation, Malcolm stole his grandfather's old revolvers and began fighting crime under the unregistered alias Crackshot, even as his brother operated under the sidekick alias Kid Quick with their father. Crackshot was successful, for a time, fighting the smuggling gang that had taken up roost in one of the Burroughs of Old Union, but this success was shortlived; Crackshot's activities garnered the attention of Arsenisk, a supervillain who had been coordinating the smugglers.

Arsenisk lured Crackshot into a terrible gauntlet of challenges that left the young hero beaten and broken within an inch of his life. He then hijacked New Unity City's news channels, forcing the broadcast through every screen in the city. Arsenisk unmasked Crackshot on live television, exposing his identity as a member of the Quickshot family before poisoning with his special Arsenisk Venom, a special formula that gave Malcolm eight hours to live.

Arsenisk secretly offered David a challenge: if he could gather and synthesize the ingredients for the antidote before Malcolm died, Arsenisk would release the boy back to his brother and surrender himself quietly into Guard custody, with the condition that David not inform any of the Guard of his mission. David had no choice but to accept; unfortunately, the ingredients were placed so fiendishly that he gathered them with only seconds to spare, and by the time he arrived at the site declared by Arsenisk, the entire building was empty, scrubbed clean of traces and with Malcolm and Arsenisk gone. David had failed.

A Loss of Clarity
Following the loss of his brother, David fell into a deep, self-destructive depression. He abandoned his training, allowing his skills to atrophy as he spent his days replaying the footage of the Arsenisk incident on repeat. He began drinking in secret, attempting to drown his sorrows in alcohol. Despite his father's best efforts, the brightest rising star of the new generation of superheroes had become a failure before his career had even begun.

A New Direction
In the following months, various events occurred, including the Dactyla Incident and the planetary immigration of the Osci Clarke. David observed these events through the fog of depression, as his father tried fruitlessly to help his son engage with the world again. Desperately, Quickshot tried one last tactic; he appealed to his son's altruism, telling him of a prospective team of new superheroes and reformed villains that needed a leader with experience and skill to help them follow the correct path.

Initially, David refused the call to lead the New Guardians, citing his obvious shortcomings and past failures as insurmountable obstacles to performing satisfactorily as leader. His argument with his father lead to a super-speed chase through the city, where he was able to dig deep and outpace his father, ending up alone in the mountains to the north of the city.

Thinking himself alone, David broke down and wept, screaming out his sorrow to the skies above. Fortunately, the skies were not empty, and Beacon, leader of the Guard, heard David's cries. He landed next to the despondent youth, engaging him in a heart to heart discussion about the pressures of heroism and how to keep going after a failure that shocks you to your core. After this discussion, David promised to quit drinking. He didn't promise to lead the New Guardians, but he assented to at the very least, give the team a shot.

And so we begin.