‘Some call me fearless. Others call me brainless. Not even I can tell.’ -Vertigo
In 2018, NASA planned to send astronauts back to the Moon. Vertigo was planned to be one of them, until the flight surgeons noticed erratic behavior patterns from him. He’d been obsessing over something called “Jackal”, engaged in several fits of terrible false-opera singing, and was expressing quite a lot of interest in a prototype Manned Maneuvering Unit being developed to aid astronauts in space.
The flight surgeons sent him to a psychologist, and Vertigo was promptly grounded from spaceflight for paranoid schizophrenia. Luckily for Vertigo, when the Dirty Bomb attacks happened, the United States Congress sent billions of dollars to humanitarian aid for its closest ally. Just like Vertigo himself, and the jetpack he had held so dear, NASA found its funding completely gone.
Class: Fire Support
Health: 100
Speed: 400
Weapons: Hochfir, Blish, Remburg; machine pistols; Apollo-style flag melee
Appearance: He’s still fond of wearing his old flight suit, but has ghetto-stitched his Jetpack controls and ammo pouches to it.
Ability 1: Pulse Grenade (“Area Forcible Repositioning Object”)
When thrown, anyone and anything in the (Explodydendron affected) splash radius is knocked back out of it. The closer to the blast center, the more force imparted upon enemies and deployables in the area. This pulse sends said enemies and deployables flying away from the epicenter of the blast; though the pulse itself cannot directly damage enemies, the resulting high-speed collisions with walls, ceilings, objects, etc. can be fatal. The grenades themselves pulse on contact with the ground or an enemy, but can bounce off walls and ceilings for trickshots. The pulse won’t extinguish Stoker’s Molotovs or Redeye’s smoke, but will forcibly relocate the flames and smoke to just outside its pulse radius.
1 in inventory at a time, 30 second cooldown.
A note on the pulse: since it obeys Newton’s Second Law F=ma, and we can assume Vertigo’s pulse grenades always exert the same force F for a given distance from the epicenter, we can conclude that more massive Mercs won’t be accelerated as much or moved as far. The higher max health your Merc has, the more resistant they are to being tossed about by Pulse Grenades. In Layman’s terms, Fragger and Rhino stay put, Aura and Sparks get rekt.
Ability 2: Ammo Pack
Identical to Skyhammer and Arty. Whatcha gonna do, hah?
Ability 3: Jetpack (“Manned Three-Dimensional Maneuvering Unit”)
Vertigo’s signature ability, and what makes him truly unique, is the experimental NASA jetpack Vertigo decided to take with him as a parting gift. By hitting spacebar in midair, he can trigger the jets and go up, up, and away! It can be activated unlimited times, as long as you’ve got fuel in the tank to provide the impulse. The Jetpack also has directional thrust to increase his lateral movement speed to 450 in all directions as he flies, and is controlled with his feet, leaving his hands free to fire from midair. He also hopes whoever hires him has a plan for his landing, so he can focus on creative, unconventional new ways to ambush enemies in three dimensions.
10 seconds of flight time and 15 seconds cooldown. The Jetpack can only cool down while Vertigo is on the ground. Lateral thrust also consumes Jetpack fuel, so keep that in mind when you’re Longjump-Jetpacking around.
When a Vertigo shows up on the enemy team, stay alert. He can stay out of reach of melee Mercs and overfly obstacles such as Molotovs and smoke with ease. Keep in mind his ability to fly between multiple different flanking routes and make daring ambushes from unconventional angles, but also remember that there’s little to no cover when in midair. If you can, force him to fly distance and altitude and let him take some fall damage. While on the ground, Vertigo is slow and weak to gunfire, so once he touches down, don’t let up. His Pulse Grenades are only lethal if they propel you into something; if you hear it coming, get as far away from it and any surrounding walls as you can.
So get Vertigo, count down to launch, and play dirty.
