Former RP in this universe.

Long ago, for some unknown reason, many primitive humans started developing trait which made them superior to those around them. They were generally feared for their power and, as a result they began to seek out others like them so that they could be accepted. These people formed their own society and separated themselves from the rest of humanity on a series of islands and began developing technology far faster than the others. This separation spread the various superior genes through the population, making them a separate species from humans, a species that came to call themselves Titans.

When, thousands of years later, they began to interact with humans once more the humans believed them to be gods and began worshiping them. For a time they enjoyed the attention but they eventually grew tired of it. They began to crave the power to order the humans around but the fiction the humans had created around them prevented the transition from god-above-man to king. Because they could not have what they wanted, they built star ships to travel to other inhabited worlds. They conquered these worlds and ruled over the people of those worlds.

Some of the scientists from the more technologically advanced races decided that, as the Titan's powers gave them an advantage over the other races, they would give powers to the subject races. They created a retrovirus which contained genetic improvements from over one hundred species of sentient beings, including the Titans, and released it among the people of many subject worlds. This virus granted those genetic improvements to any that became infected and survived.

When the Titans learned of this, they began exterminating any population in which the virus was present. The people began to fear anyone who had the virus, and turned them over to their rulers in order to be spared the ruler's wrath.

When the scientists that created the virus learned of this they fled in ships of their own, hoping to hide among the stars until their decedents became powerful enough to fight the Titans. One of those groups fled to the old home system of the Titans, taking the opportunity to learn about their enemy by spying on them from the fourth planet in their home system.

In 2037 a group of scientist returned from Mars with viral symptoms. Due to the heavy use of medicine during the return journey, four of the six Martian astronauts survived. While in quarantine however, one of these astronauts, a carrier of the disease, knocked down a wall of the facility and escaped. He infected others when he got to the nearest city, and the Red Planet Virus began to spread.

Those that became infected sometimes developed superhuman abilities, apparently in response to stress experienced while infected. Most of the infected, however, survived the infection and got over it without getting powers. A rare few, however, became carriers. The virus reached an equilibrium with their immune system where they remained contagious but didn't have any symptoms. The most remarkable thing about these carriers, however, is the fact that they sometimes get new powers which they didn't have before.

it is now 2039, and humans have begun to fear these carriers, seeing the few super-powered people that used their abilities for evil and believing that the carriers will soon be too powerful and their enemy. These super villains have begun to attack others, believing themselves to be the rightful rulers of the world due to their superiority. We must protect the people from these villains, if only so that the public doesn't hate us.

---
We are either carriers or people who gained powers while infected.

If you are a carrier you can gain powers while you play, but you can only get them if they prevent an extreme cause of stress (injury, illness, mental stresses, etc.) and none of your other powers can deal with the situation. You will also be limited to five powers so that things don't get out of control.

I would like some of us to be villains and some heroes, but if not I can play NPCs to balance the game.

Special Rules:

1) Some of you will die, but that's a sacrifice I am willing to make.
Just kidding, but I want this to be realistic, or at least as realistic as it can be with super powers and advanced tech, so you can get sick, injured, die, etc. Your battles will take a toll on you and you will need to recover. This means that powers that help out will be valuable.
2) Powers start off weak, but get stronger quickly. Using your powers near their limits will be the fastest way to improve them.
3) Carriers can give others the virus through some form of bodily fluid transfer.
4) We don't know the whole backstory of the virus, just that Mars astronauts brought it back with them and the stuff after that. Learning the rest will take research.



Known Supervillains:

@Mr_pink, Kate is great; what do you think of Alex and Mab?

@Mr_pink, Kate is great; what do you think of Alex and Mab?

Both have pretty cool powers, Mab's could be downright terrifying if she uses it on the right person. Alex's power sort of remind me of Josuke from JoJo if you've ever watched it haha.

@TheUnknowable Might have another app up tomorrow, I was thinking of a sort of high profile more traditional superhero who could possibly later become the mentor to Kate? I was thinking either fire or electricity generation for the powers, the latter would probably be better in terms of mentorship.

<Snipped quote by Letter Bee>

Both have pretty cool powers, Mab's could be downright terrifying if she uses it on the right person. Alex's power sort of remind me of Josuke from JoJo if you've ever watched it haha.

@TheUnknowable Might have another app up tomorrow, I was thinking of a sort of high profile more traditional superhero who could possibly later become the mentor to Kate? I was thinking either fire or electricity generation for the powers, the latter would probably be better in terms of mentorship.

Who's Josuke?

<Snipped quote by Mr_pink>

Who's Josuke?

He's the main character of JoJo Part 4, his power is basically to restore things to how they once were. Here's an example of him restoring a bike after destroying it so as not to hit a baby.

@Mr_pink Cool!

reminds me of the girl from Bleach. Can't remember her name, but she can heal and fix things by reversing time.

Another character would be cool, too.

@TheUnknowable, Her name's Orihime.

Name: Jett Ryu
Age: 18
Sex: Male
Infection type: Empowered
Powers: Enhanced strength (able to lift almost seven times his body weight), stamina, senses (night vision, hearing, and smell especially), and reflexes (calculated to be 117% faster than a normal human at its peak).
Personality: Jett tends to be the quiet type, and often hears more than he says. While seemingly standoffish and aloof, he cares deeply for the people closest to him. Due to his past he hates people who take advantage of others. He can be a bit temperamental, but for the most part he's able to curb his temper with medication. However, when angry, Jett has been known to go overboard.
Bio: Jett came from a rather broken home. His father was abusive in nearly every sense towards him, his mother, and sister until he was arrested for a multitude of charges when Jett was eight. After this he grew to have a temper, even though he was a good kid. On and off from eleven to fifteen he and his sister were in and out of foster homes (or luckily, in their case, one foster home). When the Martian Virus came all three of his family was infected; he was the only one to survive. Up until recently he was able to lead a normal life, due to his powers not having fully matured. That all came to an end when the bank he was working as a night guard at was broken in to during his shift. Without meaning to Jett seriously injured three of the would-be robbers, and killed two more. After the incident he was fired, and sold most of his possessions to lay low.
Equipment: Knife

@Otaku95A few minor things:

1) I wasn't clear about it in the OP (will fix), but the virus only happened within the last two years.
2) you have four powers, but because two of them (stamina and reflexes) are so weak, we could just say one is the result of training or just a natural gift if you want. Kind of like batman being "peak human" in everything because of training.
3) What exactly caused him to get the powers? Did he just really want those specific powers,or was there a situation that made him want them/need them in that moment?

Appearance: Unreliable.

* Vini and Vin are the same person, simply the male and female appearance's that Vini defaults to when taking other forms. He still enjoys creating random appearances to take, these two are simply the ones he uses most often and views as his new natural look. The appearance he had before gaining his powers has been put out of his mind and he will likely never take his birth form again.

• Vini is fairly tall and well built, with light skin and light orange eyes. He had dark hair and only shows a few signs of his half-Korean heritage, appearing almost 1/4th or less Korean instead of the half he truly is. Similarly there is almost no sign of his father's Latino blood.
  ~
• Vin is a bit shorter than Vini, with pale skin and dark green eyes. She has soft, long dark hair and looks more dominantly Korean than Vini. She too shows little sign of her father's Latino heritage.

Age: Unreliable. Naturally and dominantly 17.

Sex: Unreliable. Naturally and dominantly male.

Infection Type: Empowered

Powers:

• Organic Manipulation; Vin is able to understand how living things work and alter them at a basic level. So far he is only capable of manipulating his own human appearance and making slight changes to others'. While he can change his own gender, skin color, height, weight, and even health, he can only make skin deep changes or minute internal alterations to other Humans. His effect on plants is nothing, and his effect on animals is also only skin deep, if there is any effect at all.
  
  In time he will gain a mastery of the ability and become capable of altering all living matter. He will never be able to create or destroy matter, however living things are delicate and easily killed. It would not take much to intentionally or accidentally snuff out a life or disable a being from the capability of survival. All living things require certain things to function and any mistake while altering a being could cause serious problems. The ability to understand how a living thing works offsets this downside somewhat, but a lack of focus or not having the energy needed to make the changes desired leaves no small risk.
  ~
• Energy Manipulation; absorbing energy and changing it into different types is a useful gift. He uses it to create fire and electricity as well as a source of fuel for his body. The ability tires quickly however, and the amount of energy he can hold in his body is limited. He also does not have a very large range of control, needing physical contact to absorb energy and only able to manipulate the energy a short distance from his skin. Already this has resulted in burns and shocks around his hands.
  
  Eventually his field of control will expand, allowing him to manipulate energy from a distance and store more within himself. His own body requires large amounts of energy to function, much more than another Human or even an empowered one, and as such a lot of the energy he absorbs is turned to keeping himself alive. He is also susceptible to damage by the energy he manipulates; burning and electrocution especially, but also radiation as well. Storing more energy than his body can hold will result in literally burning up his own body.
  ~
• Psychic Field: Vini's mind emits a psychic field, allowing him to interact with other minds around him. Influencing actions, reading thoughts, and telepathic communication are a few of the capabilities. Already limits have been found in that it takes immense concentration to focus on any one mind, and so far only cats have answered his mental suggestions. The thoughts of animals are incomprehensible to him, and while he feels something from plants, they aren't at all categorizable as thoughts. Regardless of language, Human thoughts make sense to him.
  
  As his power grows his field of control will expand and he will be able to more accurately read and influence minds at further distances with less need to concentrate. He will not be able to mind-control a sentient being or any creature with significant willpower.

Personality: Vini has long been frustrated with his life, holding himself to high standards he had no way of reaching and finding the world baring sharp teeth at every turn. He wanted the world to be good to him, but it wouldn't even settle on fair, instead he found life and people to be cruel, and so he started fighting back. Some of his former gentler attributes remain, such as the urge to offer kindness and friendship to any and all, but they are buried beneath a heart of acid. He approaches others with caution and prepares for the worst from their interactions. He doesn't allow anything they say to hurt him, because he knows he is carved from marble; solid as stone and better than any of the pebbles fighting at his feet.

Bio: Vini's mother was a Korean woman who loved to travel. She met his father in Sao Paulo, Brazil and the two traveled for a few years, in Frankfurt, Germany they discovered she was pregnant. She was adamant she wasn't done seeing the world and refused to settle down. On a small trip to Chile after returning home to meet his family, Vini was born. A year later they moved from Chile to America, and the year following that his mother and her unborn daughter died in childbirth. By that time they were living in LA and were barely able to make ends meet, having spent too much of their money traveling and his father never finished his education. However his father refused to move to a less costly city, claiming LA was his mother's favourite place. Three years later they moved from California to a small town in Oregon.

Vini had two names, using his Korean one at home with his father, who was confusingly Brazilian and thus spoke Portuguese, but had learned some Korean from his now deceased wife, and his more European name at school with his friends. He had many friends at first, carrying a sense of loneliness with him at how empty and quiet his home was, and he was desperate to have as many companions as possible. He found the other children to be cruel though, and many of his friends bullied his other friends, or said horrible things about each other. Vini often refused to get caught up in the feuds though, which alienated both sides. Near the end of his stay in Oregon he only had a handful of friends of a like mind who disliked getting involved.

He left them behind when he and his father moved across the country to live in North Carolina, for seemingly no reason. If there ever was a reason, Vini never discovered it. Once more he started making friends with as many people as would have him, but as he discovered they too were cruel and hateful towards each other, Vini stuck to his teammates on the swim team instead. They could usually be counted on to place nice with everyone, but even they had their spats with this and that student. Vini found himself ignoring their flaws just so he could justify them to his too-high standards and maintain their friendship.

Just before he gained his powers, Vini found himself in a situation he couldn't ignore. He'd gotten a girlfriend the year before, but things had ended abruptly when she moved to Virginia. There were occasional other girls who caught his eye, but just as frequently there were boys. When one came to him with an offer of a date, he hesitantly accepted, already knowing that if it got out it wouldn't be pretty. Of course, it immediately got out because the boy who asked him out had done it as a joke and immediately began telling others. The swim team, his only collection of real friends, did not approve.

Their actions hardened his heart, and he finally accepted that the world and everyone in it were flawed. Everyone except himself, because he had tried to be friendly, to be kind, to have an open mind and be respectful and a thousand other good things to so many bad people, but even the nicest of those people were bad and hateful. None of them were good enough to be his friend, they were unworthy of his kindness. So despite how wrong it felt to mirror their cruelty, Vini did so anyway, becoming the exact kind of person he once hated.

At the first sign of fever, he leapt at the chance to disappear for a few days. He went home and locked himself away in his room. The sicker he got, the more frustrated he became with his situation. He'd seen those people so full of hate be nice to others, they didn't hate everyone, so what was different that made those people so likeable?

The answer was obvious; they were attractive, they were fit and healthy, they could match any style and look good in any clothes. He needed that.

Gaining an ability like the first one he received was undoubtedly unlikely, certainly under the circumstances of just wanting it, but the virus works in strange ways, and he was still emotionally fragile from the betrayal of his friends and the inevitable crumbling of the relationship with his father. He needed to be somebody else, and he needed to be healthy and attractive to have a chance at ever getting to the place he'd always wanted to be. The stress was just enough to work for him.

Of course once his body started changing, becomingly nearly unrecognizable to even himself, he knew that he'd regret getting what he'd wished for. His father would never recognize him, no one would- so he was immensely relieved when his appearance returned to normal moments later. He wrestled with the gift for a while, learning how it worked, but then he collapsed.

He still looked like himself luckily, his skin was simply clearer, a few shades paler, and his eyes a lighter shade of brown. His father found him soon after, investigating the sound of hearing his body hit the bathroom floor. He was rushed to the hospital, his fever through the roof and his pulse thready. They found he was dehydrated and utterly exhausted, in the few moments of wakefulness he had in the hospital he realized he didn't even have the energy to breath.

This his second power came to him, as a direct response of being overtaxed by his first power. He began absorbing energy directly from the machines keeping him alive, and from the air around him. Gradually he began to recover, absorbing more and more energy to sate himself. The hospital had several power problems in the following days, and three days after arriving his fever still hadn't gone down and he only had short bouts of wakefulness. During one of those bouts he asked the nurse where his father was and she explained to him one of the kids from school had passed his room and mocked his preferences. His father left the hospital after overhearing and interrogating the kid.

Vini knew his father well, so he was well aware of how angry his father would be at learning something like this about his only son. When the man returned, he refused to talk to him for a long time, so long Vini was left desperately wondering what the man was thinking and beginning to seriously consider exactly what his father might do when they were alone. Then his third and final power made an appearance, and Vini saw exactly what his father was thinking.

That night he fled the hospital looking like someone else. Two days later his fever ended and he felt mostly normal. He'd been on the move ever since, heading north to Canada.

Equipment: Stolen clothes, stolen bag, handful of stolen cash.

@Ceta de CloyesInteresting character. Did you start with the MakoxAsami cosplay picture or just find that it fit well after you made the character? Just curious.

@TheUnknowable I was about halfway done with the character when I decided Mako was who I wanted, the orange eyes made me solidly of the opinion that he was perfect for the job because it's exactly the kind of small but unique alteration of appearance he would have made. Also he kinda hella cute??? I tried to find a realistic depiction of him, didn't even think of cosplayers, and then I found the picture of both the Asami and Mako cosplayers and I was like YES! They were rad cute and what shapeshifter wouldn't turn into the opposite gender? I have never had any real desire to become a girl, not permanently in a way a transgender does, but I've wondered what it'd be like, and if I had the ability I would be flipping back and forth all the time.

Okay, will post IC tomorrow or later today.

@Letter BeeNow that you're close to him, I'll tell you his powers. The Pyrokinesis is obvious, but he can also project circular forcefields from his hands. The larger they are, the less of a hit they can take. You surprised him, though, so he couldn't get it between the two of you fast enough.

Edit: I forgot to add that he's immune to yellow, orange, and red flames. Also, as I now thought up a backstory for him, add that if he's near death his body goes into stasis to protect itself.

Added a CS for the villain to the OP, for quick reference.

Vini's an ass and I love him. :o

@Ceta de CloyesWell, Derrin's going to hit on him/her then get really confused when he finds out they are a boy (genetically, at least).

@TheUnknowable I was cackling in my head as I had the exact same expectation! Of course, Vin is going to be incredibly confused too, and very pissy because of it.

I think I'll hold off on gender swapping again until Vin has a chance to take a shower and juice up on some spare electricity.

Damn, ninja'd, will read newest post and edit mine.

-edit-

I think my post works as is actually, just let me know if I missed anything and I'll edit it.