Colonel Johnathan Winters (Highwayman)

 Membership: Freelance

Race: Human

Height: 5’6

Weight: 165

Apparent Age: 55

Archetype: Physical Adept: Circle Unknown

Preferred Weapon: Sabre

Runner Song:

Bio: He is known as the Highwayman and the people speak in hushed tones about this robber of the open road, for his legacy has grown beyond that of a mortal man; for the legend of the Highwayman can be heard throughout the small towns of the Native American Nations (NAN) and United Canadian American States (UCAS), many fear travelling the roads least travelled on the random chance of crossing paths with this robber. The Highwayman has been hunting the back roads and forgotten highways of North America since 2045 and has amassed quite a legacy for himself; this robber has no real chosen target and anyone that falls into his trap will become his next victim; for the Highwayman doesn’t just rob his targets, he as well steals their very souls and leaves their bodies for the carrion on the road side, he cares little for age, sex or race to him all targets are created equal and it’s their possessions and wealth that he desires and nothing else.

What caused an honest man to begin a life of crime is unknown, as this robber and killer was once a loving father and husband living in the heartland of America where he served as the Principal of the small elementary school within the small Iowa town of Winterset in the heart of the United Canadian American States; the small town held a population before the Great Tragedy of just over 5,000 people and after the great migration out of the Native Lands and the Nights of Blood the population never truly increased and only decreased over 50% in the course of ten years and holding steady at about 2,500 people of mostly European decent and very few metahumans; with only 3% of the population transforming and a even smaller fragment becoming part of the Sixth World. This little sleepy hollow of a town would see its fair share of tragedy during the coming years and become the legend of folklore and mystery as many of it’s citizens would go missing during the period of 2030 to 2040 Winterset would suffer a near economic collapse as the population would dip drastically to nearly 500 people as war raged on around them. The UCAS would also being reconstructing the pipeline and highway systems that dissected the nation and it would seem that Winterset would become yet another causality in the great expansion of the heartland.

Johnathan Winters was born within the Heartland during the days of the Great Tragedy and was raised with old fashioned American values, he was brought up to respect his elders, work hard, get married and raise a family; though he was witnessing the decline of the family unit, the growing distrust of the standing government and rise in violent revolutions. This would stand in direct contest to the way he was raised and what he believed was correct; though come his eighteenth birthday the country was once again engaged in war and Johnathan would do as his father and his father before him; he would volunteer for service to defend his country and fight against the growing threat of the rebels and their hatred of the American way. Having witnessed the affects and aftermath of the civil war in the 2020’s and growing up through the Great Tragedy of 2018 he couldn’t sit ideally by any longer and like all youths of his his generation, Johnathan Winters would become filled with patriotism and believe strongly in the ideology of the New America.

So he packed up his bags, hugged his parents and boarded a bus for a nearby UCAS Army training centre to fight the good fight and do his part for the nation he loved so dearly. Like many of the young soldiers of the Second World War, Johnathan married his high school sweetheart days before he shipped out and with his wife back home in Winterset he left his home and travelled down the highways till he arrived within Fort Leonard Wood deep within the Missouri wilderness to begin his eight weeks of basic training. The entire time the Drill Instructors where telling the recruits that only a quarter of them would survive their first sixth months in the field and to take a good look around as many of the people in this room will be dead before the year is out. Many of the cadets would be obviously disturbed by the statistics laid before them, and many would remain optimistic on their chances; though for Johnathan he was a realist and figured the odds where far worse than they were told and he would count his blessings till he returned home either on his own power or in a box.

What the UCAS Army never prepared the recruits for was the continual assaults that would strike Fort Leonard Wood from both the Rebels and the Confederates that sat just across the river and where upset about having to divide Missouri after the surrendering of the Union during the Civil War. The UCAS is not one to adapt to change very well and even though Fort Leonard Wood was well known by the enemy as a infantry training ground and housed many infantry divisions within it as well as some very large arsenals. They wouldn’t alter their tactics and continue to use the Fort as their training grounds and never once change the security or up the presence of the infantry divisions within the base; this would be a grave inadequacy in the UCAS’s military defence as well would leave many of the recruits inside to become causalities of the revolution long before they were fully trained and prepared for combat. According to Johnathan Winters this life saving information would not be made clear to the recruits as they would be sent off to play war games in the woodlands of Missouri with nothing more than blank ammunition and outdated laser tag technology; all the while the enemy was already well dug into those regions and would pick off the trainees one by one with their live rounds. It would become a fight for survival when a war game turns into a real conflict situation.

Johnathan Winters would see the same lack of compassion from his commanders and instructors day after day and each time he would raise his concerns he would be punished for his questioning of authority; as he progressed through his training, locked into a contract that he couldn’t escape Winters would witness many of his fellow platoon mates begin to fall victim to the war long before graduation, he would begin to feel sick to his stomach that he too would die out their during a training exercise. The UCAS was using the deaths of the trainees as a political grand stage to speak ill against the rebels and confederates to gain further sympathy within the people that where growing tired of the continued conflict. Though it would be what Johnathan would discover during a training exercise that would break his spirits and finally cause him to go Absent Without Leave (AWOL) and join the opposing side a decision he wan’t proud of, but one that made the most sense at the time and he now strongly believes in.

While Johnathan and his squad where out on movements in the wilderness, preparing for their last war game before graduation; the instructors having placed Winters as the squad leader as his final test of leadership. It was a cold December evening as the walked along the frozen banks of the Big Piney River, they were supposed to breach a small enemy convoy and capture the opposing teams commanding officer; well that was the plan and Johnathan had everything laid out, the men where spread out and the trap was set. All they had to do was wait for the enemy convoy to spring it and it would be all over, as Winters and his men laid in weight for a convoy that was heading their way; he suddenly had a very bad feeling and his gut was telling him that this was going to be his last stand. He gave the order for his men to break position and move deeper into the woodlands, this would confuse those that he was working with though they followed orders like good little soldier boys; this actually would be his saving grace when the convoy did roll down the road, the men all outfitted in their Red Team markers would become victim of what he thought was a unit of rebels once again mistaking trainees for the real deal. Though what happened next was his breaking point, Johnathan watched as the enemy troops would make camp in the carnage and begin to toss the bodies into the Big Piney. He would also witness with his own eyes and ears the communications between the so called rebels and the bases Commanding Officer General Ronald Price, who was asking for a head count on the fallen and then saying that their was another twelve men out there that needed to not come home. All the recruits needed to die to continue to gain the public’s support; they needed to call this the Great Christmas Slaughter of 2031. He then gave the soldiers a radio tracking identification code for the remaining team; this would cause Johnathan to grow very nervous seeing that he had just been targeted for assassination and his men and friends would as well never survive the night.

Trapped in a dire situation and unable to use the radio to warn his men, Johnathan stripped himself down of all equipment that might contain a tracking device and buried it within an old tree hollow; he then belly crawled away from his gear knowing the armed soldiers would be on him quickly as they were already breaking from their camp and on the hunt; Winters could hear their radios and how excited they were that Blue team was within the vicinity. Winters would remain low and attempt to make his way towards his men, though to no avail shots would ring out through the night. This was like shooting fish in a barrel and one by one he would hear the cries of his friends as they would suffer friendly fire and pass away into the night. Johnathan knew that his time would come and the only weapon he had on him was a combat survival knife, he was already the top of his class with the blade being a physical adept and he only hoped that his skills where greater than the trained soldiers on the prowl. He slide the blade silently from the sheathe and stayed low using all the skills he learned in scouting and on hunting trips with his father; Winters knew all he needed to was bring one down and then he would have access to their firearms and ammunition, though that was going to be the problem as he had never killed another person at this point and like many new soldiers the morality of the situation was starting to sink in. Not only was it another human being, this was not the declared enemy, this was fellow American soldiers that took the same oath as he did; though Johnathan didn’t forget their orders where to kill him and if he wanted to see his wife again he was going to have go to extremes and maybe these soldiers would be unprepared for a recruit to attack them and he could catch them off guard.

Well thats just what happened and as Winters crawled through the frozen underbrush he spotted a soldier lurking through the woods, watching a receiver as he hunted one of the few remaining living members of Johnathan’s squad; little did he know that this was going to be his last day on earth as Winters was stalking him like one would a deer and with a quick pounce Johnathan sprung the trap and drove the knife deep into the soldiers windpipe silently bringing the body to the ground and dragging it into cover. Johnathan quickly field stripped the body and took any viable supplies before he began to stalk the next one, this would commence with Winters bringing down the unsuspecting squad with nothing but a combat blade and his ingrained training; not only would he kill ten trained soldiers he would as well save the last two men of his squad. Winters would tell them that if they returned to base, they would be arrested for murder and accused of being a rebel sympathiser; he told them what he overheard and that those where not rebel soldiers, they where UCAS infantry and under orders to remove our entire graduating class to further their political agenda and gain further favour of the people.

His remaining men, where in shock though they had no reason to disbelieve their friend that had just killed the soldiers and saved their lives. Winters would toss the bodies into the river after removing any needed supplies and a quick change of clothing. He than tossed the gear he hide in the tree hollow into the river, this was as well don by the remaining men and off into the cold dark night he humped with his pack low and powder dry. Winters would never again be able to return to Fort Leonard Wood and any gear stowed their would be sent back home to his wife seeing that he would be considered dead. Though the bigger problem was how was he going to stay hidden and make it back to Iowa to collect his beloved Missy, this would also lead to further problems and Winters would not be out of the woods yet (Sorry for the bad pun). He might have avoided most certain death, he was now going to have to traverse dangerous territory that was under heavy conflict and either side would gladly put a bullet into him; his men where also a liability as they were growing nervous about running away. Winters knew he needed these men and they where his friends, but yet distrust was beginning to show it’s ugly face, this was something that needed to be dealt with and quickly before it fully consumed him and he did the unthinkable.

Well as luck would have it the runaway recruits would come face to face with the very men that they were being trained to fight, and quickly surrendering to the Freedom Patriots to show them that they meant them no harm; Winters not only surrendered but he tore the UCAS patches off his jacket got on his knees and placed his hands behind his head. He figured one of two things would happen either he would be executed right there or he would be taken prisoner and could express his desire to join them and divulge the intelligence he did have in trade; one of his squad mates also followed suit though Private Brown wouldn’t submit to the enemy as he still believed the propaganda and he opened fire on the rebels. Winters and Stillwater remained in their position of surrender not wanting to become unneeded casualties, though as bullets tore through the air around them it wasn’t certain that they would survive; both men decided to hit the deck until the fighting subsided, though Winters was rewarded with a full metal jacket tearing though his shoulder from Private Browns weapon as he crumpled to the ground. The rebels made short work of Private Brown, and then surrounded the two downed men who where calling for a surrender and Winters needed a medic; they both begged for their lives and told the Patriots that they were fleeing the UCAS and looking to join the Patriots and fight for the cause. The rebels scoffed at the idea, but being honourable soldiers they took Private Winters and Stillwater into custody and took them as prisoners of war, this would play right into what Winters wanted and he knew that they would as well take care of his injury and this would give him time to plead his case and hopefully spare his neck from the gallows.

The Patriots brought the two prisoners to their base camp and directly to the medics as both men where suffering from exposure and Winters a gunshot wound; while the men where being tended to, they would continue to seek refuge within the rebels and request their desire to join the fight for freedom. It would be a hard pressed sell, but eventually the rebel command within Missouri would believe their request was sincere and many hours of interrogation and follow up reports from Boston about the events being called the Great Christmas Massacre of 2031; the Patriots would fully understand there plight and welcome them into the flock, though it would take further time and many shows of commitment before they were truly accepted as brothers in arms. For Winters this was expected and he was more than willing to fight alongside men that proved to have honour and ones that seemingly held true to the American values he long craved; Stillwater being far more jaded would just fall in line and accept it as his place, the two men would eventually separate and it wouldn’t be till 2055 that they would reunite on the dark roadways of the UCAS. Though for Winters he would quickly rise through the ranks and show that he was a valuable asset and willing to do whatever it took to defend the Constitution; Johnathan once faithfully accepted the teachings of the UCAS would now fully accept the teachings, documents and recounts of the past. Many of the tales would seem to be in direct contest with what he was taught in school, though for some reason Johnathan would believe the stories from the elders of the Patriots; he could see the emotion in their eyes and the passion in their voices as they recalled the events of the Great Tragedy and the horrors that would befall them and their neighbours.

Though for Winters the fighting would be only a part of his life, the UCAS had declared him deceased and fully destroyed any chances of him having any sort of normalcy in his life. He longed to return to Winterset and reconnect with his with Missy and his family, he wanted to return home with his new found knowledge and spread the truth to those within his community and help protect Winterset from the great machine of the UCAS, Though he was now known to be deceased, he was a member of a rebelling agency and had the blood of the UCAS on his hands; returning home seemed like a pipe dream that was a million miles away. The Freedom Patriots knew of his dreams and his desire to return home, they knew that he was tiring of the constant fighting and just wanted some resemblance of a normal life; even though they tried to convince him that returning to Winterset was dangerous and could result in his arrest and execution, Winters would not relent and in March of 2038 they would create a false identity for him and return him to his home town to begin his new life. The Patriots had set him up with a position within the education system as an administrator, set him up with a home and all the basic necessities of small town living. They warned him that reaching out to his wife and family would be risky, though they knew the odds of a chance meeting were quite plausible do to aspects of small tow living.

So in March of 2038 Winters would return to the small village of Winterset and on a cold winters morning he enter the town of his birth, he would see the devastation of the war, many of the towns homes and business boarded up and many of the residents gone. The once busy main street now just a ghost of it’s former glory as he pulled into to the driveway of his new home, all ready to begin his new life Johnathan knew in the back of his mind that any day could be the day he would have to engage into a firefight to protect himself from arrest or death; but today would not be that day and for Johnathan he would manage to stay hidden within his new life for just about six years before he would be forced to evacuate Winterset and return to the wilds of the heartland.

During his time within Winterset Johnathan would eventually reconnect with his beloved Missy one Sunday morning while he attended Sunday service, they would lock eyes in the church during the preachers sermon and afterwords they would spend time together in secret as Johnathan would learn that Missy would be devastated when she heard of his death and never believed that he had actually died; she always dreamed that one day he would return home and swoop her off her feet in a true Hollywood happy ending. He would also learn that his parents had passed away, in a random act of violence that still has the township police baffled, and his siblings would as well become victims to the same level of violence; leaving Johnathan to be the last of his direct family, it just smelled of the UCAS but he couldn’t prove it. His family was found buried in a shallow grave with two small calibre gunshot wounds to the back of their heads, with their throats sliced deep, their hands had been bound and in all his experience it screamed professional hit. Someone was trying to silence his family and remove any trace of the Winters, Johnathan suddenly began to rethink his decision to return to Winterset and maybe he should just return to the Patriots leaving his past behind him. Though as he contemplated running away, he would be given the news of his wife becoming pregnant and Johnathan over joyed with excitement would allow his better judgement to be overshadowed by the news of his pregnant wife and new child.

Also with the towns population declining through migration out, do to developers buying up the land for the new super highway and the continued mysterious murders that plagued Winterset, Johnathan would become quite more noticeable and popular with the remaining population as he would become the champion for justice and start to unite the remaining townsfolk against the construction of the Highway. His work within the school system would conflict with the approved curriculum and gain national attention do to it’s historical contradictions, he would eventually be photographed by a local paper and overnight Johnathan Winters perfect little bubble would come crashing down as the world would get a look at the newly elected mayor of Winterset Mayor Charles Smith. Johnathan new that he would have to evacuate the town, though he didn’t want to leave his wife and now third child and leave them to an unknown fate; he had heard the tales of the Minute Men, the Unforgiven, Devil Dogs and many of the Freedom Patriots explain that the UCAS targets families to break the resolve of the rebels and cause them to make mistakes. He was now caught between a rock and hard place, and no mater the decision it wouldn’t be good; so he did the honourable thing and stuck by his wife and children’s side, prepared to die defending them from any direct assault.

Johnathan would stand tall and proud fully accepting that he was a walking dead man, and just bidding his time before the Grim Reaper would come knocking; though he was fully prepared to fight till his last dying breath and if one thing is true, the Patriots do train their soldiers well and Johnathan was no exception. Now I want to say that this has a happy ending and they all lived happily ever after; well sadly I can not and Johnathan Winters would be forced to go through the same heartbreak that many within the Patriots have suffered; though he would make certain that the government would pay a considerable price for their sins against him. The biggest threat to Winters came in the form of the Freedom Task Force under the command of Director Mitchell; they knew that he was still alive and among the living and have been hunting him since 2031, the only issue was like Mitchell Winters was always one step ahead of his pursuers. That was until the publication of his photograph in November of 2044, when the government would be able to put the final piece of the puzzle together and prepare an assault onto the home of Johnathan Winters aka Charles Smith.

The UCAS would launch a grand assault under the cover of darkness on February the 20th 2045, and as the village was vast asleep the soldiers of the Freedom Task Force would roll into Winterset just after 2200 hours and make their way towards the home Winters shared with his wife and children. Well for the agents of the UCAS they would fail to count for the reality of living in a small town and their is always somebody watching; according to Jonathan he received a phone call from one of his neighbours of suspicious vehicles entering the town and heading straight for his home. Johnathan would awaken his family and attempt to send them off in the family car to a safe location. Winters staid behind to lure the government assault directly to his location and hopefully protect his loved ones from an uncertain fate; though for Winters his fate was just as unclear and he was more than prepared to meet his maker defending his loved ones.

As Winters ushered his family off in the car into the cold dark night, snow began to fall and blanket the earth Winters would prepare for what he believed to be his last stand against an unknown foe. The government had sent it’s agents to silence and remove a thorn from their side, Johnathan having only a few moments to prepare for their arrival would pull a page out of General Bowers play book and decide to use his home as a weapon and thus thin the herd of the enemy before he is overwhelmed. He quickly gathered his bug out gear, extinguished the pilot light on his stove and propane heater, turned the lights out and made his way out into his back yard. He dug himself in and awaited the arrival of the government and hoping they would use there standard practice of entry and thus causing the gas filled home to explode killing and wounding many of the agents; allowing Winters to pick off the stranglers before slipping away to meet his family.

As Winters waited for the agents arrival, he could here the sounds of gunfire in the distance echoing through the countryside; this was nothing unusual as the war was just outside their boarders and fighting was a regular occurrence. Though this was much closer and followed by the sounds of explosions disturbing the serenity of the night. Winters said a silent prayer and hunkered down as headlights began to emerge piercing the darkness and tires screeching to a halt in front of his home. As the gas filled his home, the agents pilled out of the trucks and stormed the house, battering ram in hand they crash through the front door and pile in the home one after another. Winters can witness that they are not following standard practice and his plan to create a explosion was going afoul quickly; he would have to take matters into his own hands before they figured out he was not inside and began to spread out. Winters lifted his assault rifle with it’s under-barrel grenade launcher; loading a thermite grenade into the breach he took aim into the house, his thermographic goggles revealing the presence of dozens of signatures scouring his house, the gas bleeding into the spectrum he held his breath and pulled the trigger. With a whoosh the grenade tore out of the barrel and crashed though the dining room window, in mere seconds the thermite would ignite the dining room furniture, carpet and rugs; the agents began to panic and call for a retreat from the rapidly increasing blaze as they noticed the scent of the gas that was being masked by their filters initially. The quick travelling blue flames began to tear through the home and as the agents began to run Winters removed his thermographic goggles and took cover as the flames quickly reached the tanks and in under a second the entire house quickly erupted in an inferno cooking everyone inside and than the explosions that would tear the house apart and launch a fireball hundreds of yards into the sky, illuminating the gruesome scene and alerting the authorities of the impending emergency situation. Winters could hear the fire siren roaring through the town, as he began to belly crawl through the rock, snow and burning debris to evacuate the scene during the impending chaos.

Johnathan was out of danger and his plan had worked, well thats what he thought and as he crawled though the countryside to meet up with his family he would learn that not everything had gone according to plan. as he crest the hill overlooking the towns abandoned main street; he could see the family sedan burned out and full of bullet holes looking like something out of Bonney and Clyde’s final moments with a team of agents crawling around and poking at the bodies looking for the body of Johnathan Winters but coming up empty handed. A feeling of dread came across Johnathan as he watched the bodies of his family being pulled from the wreckage and hearing the callous remarks of the agents as they failed to locate Johnathan. Rage would fill his body and he would find himself contemplating a near suicidal action to take on the team of five agents, and avenge his wife and children. Winters was no longer thinking clearly as tears filled his eyes, he took aim on the team and loaded another thermite grenade into the barrel of his launcher. He knew that he would only have mere seconds to finish the agents off before back up arrived and he would be gunned down for certain. He silently took aim and awaited for the perfect moment strike, as the agents eventually gathered together to compare notes and radio in their location to command; Winters pulled the trigger and once again a flying grenade launched through the air and headed for it’s target, in a split second redemption had been found as the grenade landed ad skidded to the feet of the agent before it’s violent explosion and sending the agents to their graves as their bodies became engulfed in flames and they were cremated alive. Their screams where haunting and fleeting as the fires quickly silenced them as it travelled down their throats and torched their lungs; the agents would die through suffocation before being rendered to ash by the blaze. The sirens of the government could be heard in the distance and Winters knew that he would have to flee or die, so thats just what he did and on that cold February evening in 2045 Johnathan Winters would vanish and be reborn as the Highwayman.

The legend of the Highwayman would begin in the fall of 2045 and continue through the years as people began to fear the murderous tendencies of this robber. Though the story of Johnathan Winters didn’t end with the creation of the Highwayman and his supposed un-targeted attacks on the civilians of the Heartland and the NAN; no it would continue on as he would go on to command the Patriots within the Heartland and become one of the most feared officers within General Kingsbury’s command. The Highwayman would be left with nothing to loose and everything to gain, he had already received his retribution and would become far more focused than many within  the command; he was also not driven by revenge, he was driven by justice for all. Johnathan Winters would rise to the rank of colonel within the Heartland Corps of the Freedom Patriots and become responsible for the lives of thousands of rebel soldiers and have to wrangle in the massive travel network that has become Middle America.

With massive superhighways, pipelines and the increasing sprawl of the cities expanding out, the Heartland was becoming absorbed and eventually would vanish into a fleeting memory. Johnathan Winters would witness the decline of many of the small towns and villages as their exits would be erased and super overpasses would shadow the town; rendering it extinct and lost to the expansion of progress. Winters would watch as his home town of Winterset would struggle to survive under the pressures of the highway expansion act and this would not sit well with him. Colonel Winters would decide to merge the actions of the Highwayman and his military command and begin striking at the heart of the UCAS’s ability to mobilise and quickly move supplies and troops around.

Winters would begin preparing his strikes to surgically debilitate the UCAS and their allies within the NAN, he would strike them on the back roads and old highways that the Government would continue to use, hoping that the enemy would be looking towards their decoy transports on the superhighways; this strategy would have worked if it wasn’t for the work of the Highwayman and his many assaults on those forgotten roadways. When he decided to strike the roads less travelled it wasn’t by happenstance, even with the expanse of the superhighways and the destruction of many of the back routes, he was watching as the smaller highways and bi-ways where still being maintained by the governments Work Corps. After watching and waiting for a few months he would begin to see many military transport convoys travelling these roads in the dead of night. Travelling through regions that where rendered extinct by the massive superhighway network and if it wasn’t for the Highwayman, this would still be a known unknown; now it was to become the UCAS’s greatest weakness and one that can be exploited to his advantage.

He would begin his strikes and sadly no plan goes without a hitch and innocent causalities would occur during his highway battles and thus would begin the legend of the Highwayman and his ruthless unyielding nature. Though the accidental deaths of the innocent civilians would not go without it’s reward, the Highwayman legend would grow and the UCAS would begin the believe the legend and not actually think they were being targeted by this highway killer; though again this is only speculation. The workings of the Highwayman and his actions within the Freedom Patriots would continue to grow throughout the region and even the UCAS could no longer ignore the highway bandit, and his seemingly random attacks. By the 2050’s the legend of the Highwayman had grown and spread coast to coast, this fact was not lost on Johnathan Winters and the Patriots where quite pleased with his progress and thanks to him the war in the heartland had stalled and many troop movements had to be redirected deeper into Canada to bypass Colonel Winters and the legendary Highwayman. Though eventually Winters would have to focus on one element or another, as having his focus divided between the actions of the Highwayman and the demanding nature of his command post; so come 2055 the Highwayman would make his last and most destructive strike on the UCAS as they progressed through the old highway system into the Native American Nations (NAN). Now this strike might have proven to be fatal for the Highwayman if it wasn’t for his old friend Rowan Stillwater, who had recently been transferred to his unit to act as his executive officer. Major Stillwater would show desire to assist his friend in his extracurricular activities of being the Highwayman; with the two men now reunited and refocused the UCAS convoy would be in for a nasty surprise.

In the dead of summer on a hot July afternoon the two men set their trap and laid in wait for the convoy to pass, the UCAS had as well prepared for the Highwayman and his band of robbers hoping to put an end to the legend once and for all. Major Stillwater was a wildcard that the UCAS had’t prepared for and would be their downfall; though this strike would end up being the last of the Highwayman until 2065 with Major Stillwater keeping the legend alive with random robberies of NAN citizens throughout that period. As the convoy approached their position and sprung his trap, the proximity mines would erupt sending rubble into the air and causing multiple armoured vehicles to flip into the air and explode in a violent chain reaction. The convoy would screech to a halt, and heavily armoured soldiers would pile out of the cargo trucks flooding the roadway, bullets would erupt through the air as bother killed brother. As the soldiers of the UCAS and the rebel forces of the Highwayman would converge on that hot summers day bodies would begin to pile up and the the old roadways would become stained with the blood of the brothers.

The Highwayman with the aid of the Stillwater would end up being victorious on this occasion, though it wouldn’t be without it’s casualties and even a legendary robber and warrior such as the Highwayman would not escape this encounter without suffering serious injuries and would have to be pulled to safety by his dear friend Stillwater. Now we know the legend of the Highwayman is still quite alive an well as he has been striking transports throughout the UCAS ever since that day, though it would be that great battle that would bring this man to the legend status. Also it seems that this would be when he would end up joining the Presidents Men, alongside his dear friend Stillwater. Who recruited them is unknown and who aided in their training can only be assumed to be Echo since the Highwayman has shown some terrifying prowess with the blade and has matching stances with Echo. He still commands the Heartland Division of the Freedom Patriots but with his vast knowledge of the badlands, it is no mistake that the Presidents Men have been able to intercept and divert many UCAS transport shipments.

One would have to say that if their is one man to be very cautious about within this unit I would say it would be the Highwayman, he is a master of the badlands, and the old highways of the old world. He is also the one man that is standing directly in the way of the NAN and UCAS from fully destroying any reminisce of the Old America; now if this is a good thing it’s unknown as the Highwayman is now nothing more than an assassin for the rebels and anyone that stands in his path faces a fate worse than death. Lets be realistic, these relics of the past are fighting for something that failed long before the rise of the False Flag and they employ the tactics that the people feared than. The Highwayman is just one of those relics of a forgotten age that should stay forgotten, though for the smugglers they have to answer to the Highwayman and if it wasn’t for his work in the Heartland we might not know about the Vandals and their Human Trafficking ring; so one can say that some good has come from this evil man. The Highwayman has waded through rivers of blood and survived onslaughts that should have killed him many times over; his powers are unknown, and his skills are on par with Echo when it comes to the blade and anyone who stands before the Highwayman just becomes a victim to his blade and yet another notch on his belt. He is evil like the rest of that order of assassins, though some call them the true American Hero’s; I have many of their families that still mourn the loss of the loved ones killed by one of these Presidents Men.

So in conclusion if you travel the roads less travelled be wary of the Highwayman for he might mistake you for a loyalist to the UCAS and bring you to meet your maker, this man is like the rest of them and evil incarnate. Don’t be fooled by the broken down car on the roadside, be wary of dark passageways and best to stick to the main roads for to meet the Highwayman is one chance encounter that will only end one way.

Page Written By: Gordon Saul