The Dealer

“I want only one thing: for Atlas to fall, and all connected to them... even your old friends, the very ones who stripped you of everything you ever had. They don't care for you anymore, Siren. But I do... I can restore everything you once had, and better! And all you have to do is follow my lead. So... do we have ourselves a deal?”

―The Dealer^[src]

The Dealer is the reincarnation of the Rogue Mr. Tachibana, and the true leader of the Twilight Collective.

Biography[]

Origins[]

Before becoming The Dealer, the Rogue Mr. Tachibana existed as an impure clone created by The Son in an attempt to manipulate a vessel he could reincarnate into. The Son's experiments however led the clone to gain its own identity, who now desired to replace the original and prove its superiority. The clone did everything in its power to prove its claim, but it was ultimately defeated and eliminated. Unbeknownst to the clone, the Nexu DNA derived from The Son it possessed allowed itself to achieve an impure form of reincarnation in another universe.

The clone manifested in Earth-52319 sometime during the 21st century prior to the 2080s, where it noticed its new, albeit impure, physical form devoid of normal physical features. Realizing its status as an anomoly would attract the attention of his original self and the Nexus Apparitions, the clone adopted a new identity dubbed "The Dealer" and quickly began scheming of a way to prepare himself for a future conflict with the Nexu beings to fulfill his desire of proving himself. In 2086, The Dealer took advantage of the collapse of the Governments Age to form the Twilight Collective in secrecy.

Using the collective, The Dealer intended to raise them as his personal army in the battle against the Nexu beings, though he kept this intention privy to its members and instead told them that the collective's purpose was to overthrow the newly-appointed megacorporations throughout the world and establish themselves as the true heirs of the new world. While the collective slowly amassed its members and resources over the years, The Dealer remained hidden within the shadows to conceal his presence from the Nexu beings and prevent them from locating him before he could finish building his army.^[2]

Collective Preparations[]

Birth of Mrs. T[]

To further distance his true identity from the public eye, The Dealer adopted an alternate form and identity of a woman he called Mrs. T, initially posing as a fixer. As Mrs. T, The Dealer created Victorian Arms as a front to allocate additional funds and resources for the Twilight Collective by creating and selling firearms to clients ranging from the Neon Raiders to Shadow Company. While operating as Mrs. T, The Dealer followed in The Son's steps and experimented with the possibility of manipulating his next possible reincarnation, yielding in the creation of an artificial Nexu posing as a human he named Iana.

Sometime after conceiving Iana, The Dealer as Mrs. T adopted two other young women, Glimpse and Alice, the former being augmented with Nexu cybernetics that The Dealer could remotely control in the event he needed to, essentially turning her into his puppet. Alongside Iana, The Dealer appointed Glimpse and Alice as key enforcers to Victorian Arms, although Alice later defected. In 2135, The Dealer personally recruited Marshal Wolfe to the Twilight Collective, who would act as the group's figurehead leader in The Dealer's stead as preparations for the collective's ultimate objective continued.^[3]

A Twist in Time[]

On August 26th, 2143, the entirety of Earth-52319 was destroyed after Blackout failed to defuse the excess amount of Fractured-Space Energy eroding the universe's stability, killing all of its inhabitants, including The Dealer, who could not reincarnate due to the vast amount of interference caused by the F-Space detonation. The days leading up to this future would be contained within a Timeline Loop by The Son, who tasked replicant variants of Techno's Inner Circle Heads to enter the loop to change the outcome of the future within it.

The variants succeeded in their mission by ensuring Blackout fulfilled his duties, allowing The Son to use the now stabilized loop as a universal foundation to restore Earth-52319 and change the grim future that would have originally played out. To ensure this future did not repeat itself, all F-Space Energy in the universe was removed from existence as a result of Blackout's success in the loop that now served as the foundation for the new history.^[4]

Near Discovery[]

On October 3rd, 2143, traces of The Dealer's impure Nexu signature were briefly detected by The Son as he prepared to leave Earth-52319 upon reuniting with his long-lost daughter Sophia. Fortunately for The Dealer, The Son disregarded the traces, deeming it too faint to investigate for the time being.^[4]

Manipulating Siren[]

On September 15th, The Dealer ventured to Neomuna, Paradise Island, where he encountered Isabelle "Siren" Lakewood, the former co-leader of Techno who was recently outed from the team after she attempted to assault Roxanne "Rox" Summers. Taking advantage of Siren's insecurities and weakened mental state, The Dealer manipulated her into forming a deal with him; in exchange for helping out with his plans, The Dealer would supply Siren with resources to form her own private group, goading her to enact retribution against Techno.

In truth, The Dealer intended to use Siren and her conflict with Techno as a scapegoat to attract Atlas International and the 501st Corporation's attention for the time being, buying the Twilight Collective more time to finalize their preparations for their long-awaited global uprising against the megacorporations. On November 14th, The Dealer stood atop a building in Neon City, silently staring in content as he observed the destruction of Forsaken Headquarters, signaling Siren's death and the end of the Forsaken.^[1]

Appearance[]

Upon his creation, The Dealer appeared as a tall, shadowy man with no distinguising facial features. He wore nearly all-black apparel consisting of a fedora, trench coat, dress pants and dress shoes.

By the 2140s, The Dealer's apparel had drastically changed. He now wears a white open trench coat with black markings, black dress pants, red dress shoes, a red dress vest with a white-collared undershirt, and black gloves with red markings. He also wears a special mask that can visually emote his current expressions for him to conceal his shadowy appearance. A shoulder patch of the Twilight Collective logo is also present on his coat's right shoulder.