Crucible:Locust

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Locust

Real Name	Tommi Landers
Identity	Public
Affiliation	None known
Base of Operations	Mobile
Status	Active
Known Relatives	None known
First Appearance	VICEROY #34
Creator	Jeff Messina

“They called it innovation right up until the bodies started falling.”
— Locust

Locust is the armored aerial identity of Tommi Landers, a former aerospace engineer whose revolutionary rescue-exosuit technology was secretly transformed into military hardware by the corporation that employed her. Betrayed, blacklisted, and stripped of her career, Landers rebuilt one of her stolen prototypes into a high-speed combat platform and launched a personal war against the corporate powers she believed destroyed her life.

What began as vengeance eventually evolved into something far more dangerous.

Early Career

Tommi Landers was once regarded as one of the brightest young aerospace engineers in the private sector. Specializing in advanced mobility systems, adaptive materials, and compact propulsion technology, she worked for Aeon Tech designing exosuits intended for rescue operations in hazardous environments.

Landers envisioned her inventions saving lives. Disaster response. Orbital rescue. Search-and-recovery operations impossible for ordinary humans.

According to Landers, Aeon Tech executives publicly praised her work while privately modifying the technology for military contracts and weapons development.

By the time she discovered the truth, it was already too late.

Betrayal

When evidence emerged linking her designs to lethal military applications and covert operations, Aeon Tech shifted blame onto Landers herself. Contracts disappeared, investigations targeted her reputation, and she found herself professionally ruined almost overnight.

Whether the corporation framed her deliberately or simply sacrificed her to contain public fallout remains unclear.

To Tommi Landers, the distinction no longer mattered.

Disgraced and effectively blacklisted from legitimate aerospace work, she vanished from public life for several years. During that time she secretly recovered one of the original prototype suits and rebuilt it entirely according to her own specifications.

The result became Locust.

The Swarm Descends

As Locust, Landers launched a relentless campaign against Aeon Tech facilities, contractors, and corporate allies. Her attacks combined extreme aerial maneuverability with precise structural destruction aimed at exposing weaknesses in buildings, vehicles, armor, and infrastructure.

Entire installations collapsed under carefully targeted strikes.

Unlike many armored villains who rely on brute firepower, Locust specialized in exploiting vulnerability. She understood how materials failed, where systems fractured, and how small points of weakness could bring down structures vastly larger than herself.

Her raids quickly escalated into major conflicts involving corporate security forces, superheroes, and international authorities.

Powers And Technology

Locust possesses no innate superhuman abilities, but her custom-built exosuit makes her extraordinarily dangerous.

Known capabilities include:

• High-speed flight and aerial maneuverability
• Advanced combat armor
• Precision cutting and breaching systems
• Structural analysis targeting systems
• Energy weapons and tactical projectiles
• Enhanced mobility and reflex assistance

The suit’s design prioritizes speed, agility, and precision over raw durability, allowing Locust to move through combat zones with frightening efficiency.

Skills

Tommi Landers is an exceptionally gifted scientist and engineer.

• Aerospace engineering
• Advanced physics
• Materials science expertise
• Structural analysis and failure prediction
• Tactical systems design
• High-speed aerial combat piloting

Landers’s ability to identify weaknesses in materials and systems makes her especially dangerous against armored opponents and technological infrastructure.

Personality

Locust is intelligent, bitter, driven, and morally conflicted. Unlike many villains motivated purely by greed or conquest, Landers genuinely believes she was wronged by institutions that exploit innovation while destroying the people responsible for it.

At times she still sees herself as a crusader exposing corruption.

At other times, her anger and obsession clearly push her into outright terrorism.

This tension defines much of her character. Beneath the rage remains the brilliant engineer who once wanted to save lives. But years of betrayal and isolation transformed that idealism into a weaponized need for retribution.

She no longer trusts corporations, governments, or systems of authority.

Only physics.

Physics never lies.

Legacy

Locust became one of the most dangerous high-speed armored villains of the modern era and a recurring adversary in the adventures of Viceroy and other heroes tied to corporate conspiracies and advanced technology.

Her story helped define a recurring theme of the modern age within the Crucible Universe: the line between visionary inventor and supervillain can become very thin once power, profit, and betrayal enter the equation.

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