Name:
Nathan Malu

Alias:
He hasn't come up with one for himself yet so for now he adapted his great great grandfathers hero alias Shade

Age:
17

Gender:
Male

Hometown:
A log cabin in an uncivilized part of the Hawaiian forests

Appearance:
Nathan is 1.7m tall and weighs about 80kg, making him rather small and stout in appearance. Having been born and raised on the Hawaiian islands, his skin tone is comparable to a dull bronze or a soft golden-brown-ish color. His black hair reaches down to his shoulders and becomes increasingly curly the longer it gets. He usually wears it openly and tucks one side behind his ear, although sometimes he ties it into a short ponytail so it doesn't get in the way. Nathan's face is round but not chubby and his bright light-brown eyes sit atop an unremarkable ever-smiling face.

He usually wears an open hoodie jacket over plain t-shirts, that usually have some quip or joke printed on them. He likes to wear shorts, since they are comfy and easy to wear. Especially cargo shorts, because he likes to have a lot of pockets on them for a bunch random things, like a flashlight, his phone and a pair of sunglasses. Nathan also prefers comfortable off brand running shoes over expensive, flashy sports branded ones, probably due to their short life span on his feet.
(Picture in the works as well)
Biography:
In 1870 two brothers, Kahananui and Kimo Malu, stood on the edge of the forest clearing they called home. The clearing had a small log cabin and a field with homegrown vegetables in it, as well as a small chicken coop and a tool shed. Kimo, the younger brother, had just turned 26 and after their mother died, he had decided to leave the island for the mainland. Kahananui, the older brother, understood his brothers desire for freedom, but would not leave with him. He was 30 at the time, but looked like a 12 year old, due to his strange abilities. They hugged each other once, said there farewells and a second later Kimo was gone, slipping into the long sunset shadows and disappearing from his brothers view.

About 140 years later Kahananui stumbled upon a small confused boy near his cabin in the woods and took him in. He hadn't noticed the boy at first, and would probably have ignored him if it wasn't for the child's bright yellow eyes, that stared at the old man through the shadowy forest. Recognizing the eyes from over a century ago, Kahananui was overjoyed for a moment and ran towards the yellow glint in the bushes, startling the child. Realizing his mistake, the man calmed down and took the crying child to his home, where he explained that he thought, that at long last his brother had returned and apologized to the boy. The boy however wouldn't speak to the kind man for an entire week before introducing himself as Nathan Malu. Kahananui was again overjoyed when hearing that name and exclaimed that the boy must be his great-great-grandnephew. He pulled up a necklace from under his shirt and showed it to Nathan, who had a pendant of his own, that he had received from his father. His resembled a full moon, with a weird structure on the back of it. His uncle gave Nathan the other pendant, who studied it for a second. The old man's pendant resembled a ring of fire, like he had seen in depictions of the sun. Withing the ring was a hollow circle, that had the perfect size for his moon to fit in it. Nathan combined the 2 halves and showed it to his uncle, who, overwhelmed by emotions, started crying and hugged his nephew.

From that day forward Nathan would learn everything Kahananui could teach him. From reading and writing, to farming and woodcutting. His uncle also told Nathan everything about his brothers legacy that the boy might have inherited. He revealed to him, that his parents, his brother and him were part of the old superhero generation back before the 20th century. His parents had lived a life of crime-fighting before they decided to settle down and start a family. They went to a remote location to keep their children safe and Kahananui had lived there ever since. He explained that he had been born with an ability he presumed to be immortality at first. His wounds would always heal almost instantly and he aged at a snail's pace, however through the years he realized, that it's more of a turtle aspect situation. He could communicate with the shelled creatures down at the beach and his life was only prolonged, not eternal. He always thought that he might one day grow a shell of his own, but there were no indications for that so far. He then started to tell Nathan about his brother, who had had the ability to control and manipulate shadows, he was a genius, molding them to his will and even solidifying them and using them as blades or shooting spikes from them. He practically vibrated with pride talking about him. He told Nathan, that their mother had given them the pendant on her deathbed and that he knew, that the other half would one day return to him. Then Kahananui went on and taught Nathan everything about the history he had lived through and observed throughout his live. During his long life Kahananui had started to practice martial arts as a means of meditation and after realizing the enormous physical capacities of his nephew he started teaching him everything he knew about them as well.

A total of 9 years Nathan spent learning and training on the island, without ever seeing anyone besides his great-great-granduncle and the only person who knew they were up there, a village elder called Kahili from the opposite side of the island. Kahili supplied them with news, emergency supplies and batteries for their crude electrical equipment. An old radio, a bunch of flashlights and an electrical razor, that Kahananui said, was the best thing to ever be invented. But then, in 2018, something terrible happened. While Nathan was fast asleep from a group of strangers had broken into the log cabin and, after losing 3 members of their team, managed to catch the old turtle hermit off guard with a sneak attack using one of their member's powers. They restrained him and cut off his arms to put them into an icebox before breaking both of his knees and running away into the night. Kahananui, feeling his life coming to an end, managed to drag himself into Nathan's room to wake him up. Nathan opened his eyes feeling slightly dazed and finding it difficult to wake up at all, like he was fighting against some sleeping medicine, but when he turned his head and saw his mutilated uncle sitting in his doorway he was immediately wide awake. He jumped out of his bed and ran to get their emergency first-aid kit, but Kahananui stopped him. Being glad that the boy was unharmed he started to explain what happened and that his time was running out. He told Nathan, that those guys had had powers, just like in the olden days and that he thought another era of superheroes was afoot. His best guess for the intrusion was, that someone had found out about his existence and wanted to experiment on the original hero DNA, but he didn't understand how they knew or how they got here without him noticing. All throughout his uncle's explanation Nathan was hugging him, hyperventilating and sobbing. His uncle comforted him, saying that he lived a long and peaceful live and then told him to take both parts of the necklace. His final words were, “That way you will always have me and my brother's hearts with you.” and with a last toothy grin he had passed away. Nathan was completely shaken by this and, after taking his uncles pendant and combining the two parts once more, he laid his uncle's body on his bed and covered it with a white blanket.

The following two weeks Nathan just said on a chair next to the bed with an empty expression on his face. He still cared for the crops and chickens, but he only did so on autopilot, never losing his empty stare. After said two weeks Kahili showed up for her monthly visit and saw that the door was open. Confused she stepped into the cabin to see three dead bodies in Kahananui's old room and a sleeping Nathan on a chair next to his occupied bed. Walking over to the teenager, she hugged him tightly, waking him in the process. Nathan was startled for a second then embraced the old woman and cried for the first time since his uncle had died. For a long time they just sat there and cried, but when the tears stopped flowing Nathan told Kahili, that he wanted to leave for the mainland and find out who had done this to his beloved foster parent. Kahili nodded understandingly and over a course of 7 days they buried Kahananui by the turtle beach and prepared everything for Nathan's journey. Kahili gave Nathan a smartphone, a backpack, which he filled with everything he had, and about 200 dollars to help him on the other side. After a very sentimental good-bye Nathan left his home with the bi-annual ferry to uncover the reason for his uncle's murder.

It didn't take Nathan long to learn, that he'd find the most valuable information in Bell Reach. However getting there would take him much longer than he thought. For starters, he had gotten of the ferry in the very far north of California before finding out about Bell Reach and facepalming at the realization, that he could've easily told the ferryman to land further south, seeing as he was the only passenger on the boat. However after a week of traveling south by foot and sleeping in a tent he had bought he stumbled upon a skate park in the outskirts of a small town. Fascinated by the skaters, their boards and the music he heard he asked them if he could try it once and his natural talent kicked in once more, astounding everyone present and prompting him to hang around the area for a while. The other kids and teens thought he was a bit strange, but his cheerful demeanor and trustworthy exterior made him rather popular in a short amount of time. He even bought himself a skate board of his own and earned some money on the side with small scale competitions. He eventually did continue his southward journey, but whenever he'd meet another group of skaters he'd hang around the area for a while to get to know them and save their contacts on his phone, which in the beginning someone had explained to him over the course of a very frustrating week. He eventually got it however and now added just about any song he'd hear and like to his library. After about half a year he started to encounter more and more people with powers in the skate parks and subsequently heard about many problems caused by power wielders. Slowing his journey down even more he started solving such problems, whenever he could, to help his new friends and through some of these excursions made some friends and foes in the underworld of some of the bigger cities he traveled through. Throughout these excursions, battles and small adventures Nathan noticed something weird happening to him. He had always known about his eye's weird yellow properties when stepping into shadows, however lately he had started to be able to see much better whenever they'd glow, as well as physically feel the presence of his enemies around him, even when he wasn't punching or kicking them. He started experimenting around and realized that he had actual powers of his own and to his delight they were even shadow related.

After being on the road for about a year and a half, Nathan had developed a decent understanding of his abilities, although he felt like he had room for improvement, he was very proud of his shadow walking. Using and training these abilities in addition to his small scale fame he was gathering led some of his friends to suggest, that he should get a costume to hide his identity like the heroes in the comics did and Nathan thought this to be a pretty smart idea as well.
He remembered how his uncle had told him about his great great grandfathers plans to become a superhero and help people and at that moment he could really feel his forefather's ideals within himself. With this feeling in him he set up camp in a friend's garden, borrowed a bunch of comics and started imagining himself as a superhero. From what he had gathered they had always been popular, but ever since the power wielder boom it seemed to actually become somewhat of a needed profession, especially in Bell Reach, since quite a few people starting acting out their villainous tendencies with their newfound powers. However Nathan soon realized, that he had no idea what he should call himself. He was no Batman or Dare Devil from the comics, at most he was a Nightcrawler but just stealing someone else's name, fictional or not, didn't seem right to him. He thought back to what his uncle had told him and decided that, until he found a proper name for himself, he could always just take up his legacy as a descendant of Shade, the shadow hero. Even if he wasn't quite the same Shade his great great grandfather was, he figured than no one remembered the original Shade anyway, so no one would notice, that Nathan wasn't actually a master shadow manipulator and genius, but instead just a shadow chameleon in a way. He then started playing around with costume ideas. However after about 2 days of going nowhere he had to admit, that he simply wasn't creative enough to come up with something on his own. Settling for an old horror movie mask his friend, who had called it “Ghostface”, had laying around, he packed up his stuff and left for Bell Reach, to potentially meet some Hero outfitters to help him with his costume. A goal he reached after another half year of making friends and discovering his love for everything ice-cream related.

Personality:
Nathan is a very easy-going, care-free boy with a witty sense of humor. He tends to always have a stupid quip ready, even if it doesn't add anything to a conversation. He has a very kind heart and trusts people from the very beginning, which has caused him some trouble in the past, but has generally been a quality, that helped him make lots of friends. Having lost the only people he had in his life also made him very protective of said friends and he will hold the people close to him above anyone else. His social skills around women are basically non-existent however and he treads a fine line between treating them like dudes and stammering like an idiot, depending on the woman/girl in question.

Additionally due to his growing up on a farm he has learned the value of physical labor and, even though he can be lazy at times, he will not procrastinate things that need to be done. He loves listening to music on his phone while doing just about anything and can't keep himself from singing or rapping along at times. He has also become a really good skater and spends a lot of time on his board with his earbuds in his ears.

Nathan loves ice-cream, music and hanging around skate-parks or high-schools to meet new people and hear about the local problem and news. More than everything else however he hates ignorant, stuck up people that think their better than the “common folk”. He also hates carrots.

Skill-set:

- Extensive combat training: His great great granduncle taught him a number of techniques and styles over the course of the 8 years they spent together, including Karate, Judo, Jiu-Jitsu and Taek-Won-do

- Survivalist: After a fight with his great great grand uncle Nathan stormed out into the woods once and survived a year in the woods by himself, proving his mastery of hunting and foraging. He had even build himself a crude little tree-house, but eventually they missed each other too much and bumped into each other, while being on their respective way to apologize to the other one.

- Physical strength: Nathan has enormous upper body strength and stamina due to a very strict regimen his “uncle” used to enforce upon him.

- Street smarts: Due to the 2 years he spent traveling across the US before reaching Bell Reach, Nathan has gathered some knowledge on the how too stay out of trouble on the streets. He even managed to gain some small fame by helping out some “friends” he had made there. In addition he picked up some fighting experience and training along the way, picking up street fighting, boxing, kick boxing and knife fighting from a number of less optimal encounters.

- Network of friends: Not so much a skill, but an asset he build up over his travels. Nathan has build a network of information within the youth-culture of the western US. He has a bunch of favors left to collect and a few very knowledgeable shady characters in his phone's contacts. At the same time they contact him whenever they are in nee of help as well, a call he'd never refuse due to his strong sense of trust and friendship.
Powers:

- Physical Genius: Nathan might not be the smartest person by any means, but he is incredibly skilled in learning and adapting new fighting styles for himself. It might take more than one fight to get it down perfectly, but after a being exposed to a certain style for a while, will most likely lead to him becoming pretty good at it. This also had the strange side-effect of teaching him how to ride a skate-board, a bike, a surfboard and even a unicycle in record time, and made him a nightmare to play against in any sport. This didn't help him with his singing sadly, but he is convinced, that it's only a matter of time before he cracks that one as well.

- Shadow walking: A power, that Nathan manifested after the Boom. It enables Nathan to move in and out of shadows as if they were water. He can travel across shadows very quickly and soundlessly, however his eyes will shine yellow whenever he uses any aspect of his shadow powers. Besides his eyes however he is completely invisible and physically impervious to harm, the only drawback being, that he can only harm others in this state if he materializes, for example, his arms for a short instance. This sort of minute control can be hard for Nathan though, making it more of a stealth/ambush tool than a prolonged fighting strategy. Lastly, Nathan can shroud objects, clothes and even a person in shadow with him, but the more he takes with him the faster it drains him and it also significantly cuts down on the traveling speed he can muster.

- Shadow vision: A rather paradoxical name that Nathan came up with by himself to describe his ability to basically have perfect night vision while being in his yellow-eyed state.

- Shadow sense: Similar to Toph's tremor sense (avatar the last airbender), Nathan can feel and locate movement within the shadows he's connected to, making it a fantastic ability at night, when lights are dim and many shadows connect with eachother.

- Shadow control: The last shadow power, that Nathan just recently discovered and is pretty bad at using properly, allows him to change the shape of shadows he's currently connected to, making him able to connect them via small bridges or scouting ahead to cover an area for his shadow sense. This ability becomes increasingly difficult to use the more light the shadow would need to “travel” through.

Tools and Equipment:

- A Smartphone he carries around to be available at all times and earbud headphones to listen to go with it
- A backpack with clothes, food and a tent to sleep in
- A Skateboard he usually carried around on the side of his backpack, ready for quick deployment
- The Pendant around his neck resembling a full moon with sun-rays around it

Additional Information:
Nathan has a base level of education taught to him by his great great granduncle. He can read, write and do math, but had no proper understanding of modern sciences and technology until he came to the US-mainland 2 years ago.