Troy’s generosity and loyalty to his friends was actually what started him down a path to a life of crime – a life that Bernadette would eventually be forced to join him in. Troy’s roommates, Rafe and Iyana, had gotten themselves into a gambling debt with a rival race team, run by underground hyper-bike champ Gladhand Stan. Instead of requesting the money back from the young couple, Stan demanded that Troy begin purposely losing races to him; otherwise, bad things would happen to Rafe and Iyana. Troy complied with the request, as he was able to continue making a good living from his mechanic work. However, six months later, Stan was still expecting him to lose. Troy was fed up with taking losses, and decided to win the next race.

This made Gladhand Stan very mad. He confronted Troy in the pit area of the race track, and a brawl between the two teams broke out. Officials and other riders eventually stopped the fight, but once it was all said and done, Troy had beaten down Gladhand Stan pretty good. Because of the incident Troy was banned from racing, and incidentally began losing business as a mechanic, too.

It was Rafe who suggested they use their considerable talents as hyper-bike riders to benefit themselves in more questionable ways. And that’s when the three of them began a string of convenience store robberies. Troy surprised himself when it came to how good he was at organizing and pulling off the crimes; and Rafe and Iyana followed his lead without question. They weren’t the only ones, either, as several other hyper-bikers began to join up. Before long, the Troy Brothers gang was a true force to be reckoned with.

Smartly enough, Troy kept the gang’s activity local, and concentrated on hitting establishments funded by mobsters or other biker gangs. Thus, the authorities were rarely alerted to their activity. One person who was very aware of what they were doing, however, was Bernadette. The two cousins were still very close, and they spoke often. From time to time she’d suggest that he turn away from his dangerous life, and maybe even come to live with her in Platinum City. But it wasn’t until his friends, Rafe and Iyana were apprehended during an attempted bank robbery, that Troy seriously began to consider her offer. Disagreements had been mounting between him and his gang mates for some time, as he disagreed with the idea of hitting banks. Then one afternoon, while Troy was away in Platinum City visiting his cousin, Rafe and Iyana led the gang into Denver First National Bank, where they were confronted by a state-of-the-art, artificially intelligent security system, and a squad of elite security officers. Several members of the gang were killed, and the rest, including Rafe and Iyana, were taken into custody.

Troy had gone to Platinum City to celebrate with his cousin, who had been instrumental in the creation and implementation of the revolutionary phantom rail train system, which allowed people to pass through solid structures while riding. It was the inaugural run of the train, and Bernadette was being lauded for her accomplishments; Troy wouldn’t have missed it for the world. It was the evening after riding the phantom rail that he received the call about his crew. He packed up his gear and was prepared to leave, when his cousin returned from a meeting with her engineering team, and ruthless business mogul Edgar Lockhart, who had provided a great deal of funding for the phantom rail.

Bernadette was upset at many of the plans Edgar was proposing for the project, and had argued with him during the meeting. But her anger with him was nothing compared to the disappointed she felt in her engineering partner, Mariah Granger, and the rest of the team, for none of them had joined her in standing up to Edgar. Troy decided to stay one more night with his cousin, to offer comfort and support.

The next morning, however, the cousins awoke to the news that Bernadette had been charged with extortion and blackmail. Her assets had been frozen, she had no access to any money, and the police were on their way to arrest her. Troy was not about to let his cousin be taken down for crimes she did not commit, so he pulled out a pair of pistols, and blasted through the squad of officers that had come to apprehend her. They made it to his hyper-bike and, after a wild chase, made it out of Platinum City, back to the Rockies.

Troy took Bernadette to one of his old gang’s safe houses in Utah, where they laid low for about a year. During that time, Troy convinced his cousin to stop feeling sorry for herself, and to join him on a string of train robberies. He taught her how to ride a hyper-bike and how to use firearms, and before long the infamous Brothers cousins were known throughout the Rockies and Midwest for being the most successful train bandits around.

Eventually they returned to Platinum City, where they took aim at the phantom rail; but not to rob it. Bernadette developed a device that would cause the train, which had the ability to phase-shift through solid material, to suddenly materialize in the middle of its run. The incident caused a massive amount of damage to Platinum City, and an army of officers were immediately dispatched to track Troy and Bernadette down. It was the supercops Ox and Brolic, who finally caught up to them and confronted them.

An intense battle ensued, but Brolic’s hyper-strength and Ox’s ability to fire sharp projectiles from his mouth eventually overwhelmed them, and the Brothers cousins were arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison.

Troy and Bernadette, however, only served about a year of their sentence, as one night a multitude of ghastly lost souls came rushing through Platinum CIty Supermax Prison facility, in search of human hosts. A pair of the lost souls, which are called ghost orphans, phantom-fused with Troy and Bernadette’s bodies and spirits, giving them a multitude of new powers and abilities. They, along with dozens of other ghost-orphan-possessed inmates, broke out of the facility during a violent prison riot.

Troy and Bernadette were preparing to head back west, when they were confronted by the most dangerous ghost orphan of them all, Virginia Ice. Virginia recruited them to join her team of ghost orphan marauders, and promised them that before long, they would indeed have the power and resources to pretty much rule the world. She explained that first they’d have to defeat a group of noble assassins led by Disa Philadelphia, called The Veil. To that end, the ghost orphans were collecting resources and artillery, in preparation for a major battle that, if successful, would surely cripple their adversaries.

Virginia sent Troy to the Platinum City police impound, to steal a vehicle that could be an instrumental part of their plans – it was a giant, customized purple tank, once used and driven by notorious Platinum City super-villainess Hysteria. He arrived at the impound, and was confronted by a series of dutymen. He pulled out his rotating machine gun, and took them out with ease. He found the tank, jumped inside, and began driving away. His mission was accomplished…

Or so he thought, for as he was driving down what he thought was an abandoned alley, he was forced to stop dead in his tracks. A teenage girl in a school uniform was standing in his way. He opened up the top hatch, emerged from the tank, and yelled at her to get out of the way. The young lady did not move. Instead, she brandished a sword; but not just any sword – this was a living-blade, which meant this young lady was a member of the Veil!

Her name was Nidia Sardis, and before Troy had a chance to react, she was on him! He had to leap away from the tank to miss getting cut down by the living-blade. Luckily his machine gun was hanging from his back. He opened fire, forcing Nidia to take cover. The battle went on for a few more minutes, until Troy finally made it back inside the tank. He began driving away, but before he could take a deep breath, the tip of Nidia’s blade cut through the side of that tank, and almost took his head off!

This battle was far from over…

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