Real Name: Jenet Rosemarie Jamieson
Alignment: Villain
Faction: The Rot
Jenet Jamieson had built her life on control. She had controlled her inventions, her company, even her double life as the Hornet. But control meant little when the plague came.
At first, she thought it was like any other crisis the Vindicators had faced—dangerous, yes, but containable. Then she watched heroes she trusted begin to fall, their powers twisted into cruel reflections of what they once were. She repeated her father’s words – higher, farther, better – even as the world grew darker around her.
The night it happened the Hornet was on patrol alone. Reports placed a nest of infected in an abandoned subway station. Her suit hummed with energy, sensors sharp, electro-darts ready. She moved with precision, cutting through the shadows, striking fast and pulling back. For a while, she thought she might even win.
Then the voice came. Not words, not exactly, more like pressure in the back of her mind, an echo that didn’t belong to her. Shapes flickered across her visor, angles that made no sense. She froze, just for a second, and that’s when she saw him.
Speed Freak. One of the Retributors, a super-criminal who loved his vocation. Now his movements were twitching, wrong, as though the world itself couldn’t keep up with him. The smile on his rotting face was too wide, his voice a broken imitation of his old taunts.
“Hornet… come fly with us.”
Her suit tried to counter his sudden strike, but he was too fast. The impact staggered her, rattling the armor, sending sparks through her sensors. She pushed him back with a shock-blast, the crack of electricity lighting the tunnel. For a heartbeat, she thought she had escaped.
But The Rot didn’t need much. She looked at her side, blood had been drawn. Then came the whisper which rooted itself in her thoughts. She tried to fight it, clutching at her father’s mantra, her memories of victories, the lives she had saved. Yet the words twisted, echoed back at her in a crueler tone: Higher, farther, better… in hunger.
She sank to her knees, the Hornet suit’s systems screaming alarms. Her vision fractured into kaleidoscopes of light and shadow. And then the laughter came; not hers, not entirely.
Jenet Jamieson was gone. The Hornet was gone. Rising from the dark tunnels, wings beating with fury, was something new. Something terrible.
The Murder Hornet took flight.
“This future is delicious, and my hunger calls again!”
Murder Hornet – The Rot #3