Name: Atsushi Fukuda

Alias: N/A....?

Nicknames: Director, Fukuda-San (by some of his staff he's more personal with)

Age: 32

Gender: Male

Personality: Atsushi has the kind of personality that rubs higher-ups the wrong way; where they would prefer secrecy and subtlety, he prefers being upfront and brutally honest, in a business where, truth be told, deceptions are the norm. Not to say he won't, because he's also a smart enough man to recognize some necessity in the system...But he doesn't budge when he can afford not to, and won't hesitate to handle things his way when given the chance. He fully believes all the bureaucratic bullshit is nothing more than that. Bullshit. Sadly, it's the kinda bullshit you can't just wipe off clean and good as new. Something had to change....But for now, this status quo would need to stick.

Beyond the business aspects of things, Fukuda prefers to be as amicable as possible with those he interacts with. Not always because he actually likes or appreciates these individuals; in fact, more often than not, that certainly isn't the case. However, he finds it easier to play nice and not start shit when he can help it. This even extends to violent situations, where he'd rather turn to his words over full-blown combat...And for some reason, you can get the sense from him that it isn't because he can't hold his own. It's a courtesy.

Overall, Fukuda-San might not be the kindest authority figure, but he knows how to extend an olive branch, and he wants to. You'd be surprised how rare that can be amongst those in power...And ultimately, while he might snark or groan, he has high hopes for The Wards Initiative. After all, he's the one that pitched it. Though he can't claim he fully anticipated being the one to head it...

Appearance: Atsushi tries to keep his look professional, even if his attitude usually isn't. He wears a sleek black suit, on which he typically keeps a PRT badge pinned on the side, and underneath that is a crisp white dress shirt, long-sleeved and perfectly ironed. His dark red tie, a bit out of shape from years of use, is a token from his days back in Japan, and he wears it anywhere he goes. His pants are a matching shade of black to his suit, and he normally wears field-ready brown boots. Perhaps in the hopes he can get out of the office work from time to time...

During colder days, he opts for a fairly puffy black coat and a pair of snow boots; wintertime gets pretty awful down in Redline, truth be told.

Physically speaking, Fukuda appears to be a fairly unassuming Japanese man, standing at roughly 5'9 and weighing barely 140 lbs., he doesn't look the most intimidating or tough. Kind of a string bean, almost, but those who can catch details can tell that in spite of first appearances, he's well-trained and tougher than he looks. Beyond that, he has a mess of brown hair that he clearly doesn't put too much thought or effort into, and steely grey eyes that can come off as equal parts intimidating and unassuming. His skin tone's gotten a bit pale, but that's to be expected being stuck behind a desk for nearly two years.

Biography: Atsushi Fukuda's life story...Isn't what you're getting here. What you need to know is that he's a man whose been through plenty of shit and come out on top or at least alive in order to be here. While his attitude might give you the wrong impression, he's a man whose earned a lot of respect for his work, even if most of it is widely unknown by the public, prior to him becoming the Director of Redline's PRT. And after becoming the Director, he's got a lot of big plans in mind, both for the PRT at large, Redline, and even Capes in general, if he can get his way without crashing and burning.

Thus, The Wards Initiative.

The quantity, not even mentioning quality, of Hero Capes has slowly been going down, while villains keep digging their way from the woodworks. Something had to change....And Fukuda offered an answer. It's common for most Capes to have their Trigger Events when they're younger, and without proper guidance or watch, they're bound to strike off on their own and eventually end up on the wrong side of the law. This Initiative could change that; take young Capes and help mold them into the upstanding figures they could become! Or at the very least, get some vigilantes and...Vaguely reasonable youthful super-crooks under wraps. 'Course, when he made the pitch, Fukuda didn't count on being the guy having to manage all these munchkins...But sometimes, ya deal with the hand you're dealt. This is one of those times.

Now, let's see if he can get these brats into fighting shape...

Powers/Skills:

[REDACTED]

• Atsushi has experience in spades, both as a field combatant and an off-field director.
• In spite of his build, he's well-trained in a few forms of martial arts and quite physically capable.
• Fukuda seems to possess a natural mind for stratagem and foreseeing potential outcomes. No doubt some of the qualities that landed him this position.
• His marksmanship is top-notch, even if he rarely has reason to put that into practice.
• Fukuda-San is very skilled with reading individuals; perhaps the main reason they chose him to head this Initiative.

Other: Atsushi has a hobby of buying guns, and appreciates being able to take them apart and admire the craftsmanship before putting it back together, sometimes with his own little touches. Not a Tinker by far though, just something he does for fun.

Aurorea

Name: Eleonore Evans

Alias: Aurorea

Nicknames: Elle, Evie

Age: 16

Gender: Female

Personality: A person with a certain sense of sobriety and maturity when it comes to the use of powers and facing danger. In fact, she is one to look things in the eye once she's steeled her resolve and will face down a charging boar or such without batting an eye if she feels she must. A kind of resolve that, when felt to be most necessary on her part, can keep her standing even when terror or fear or despair would strike deep into her psyche otherwise. A strong sense of will to be sure, one that pushes her to work diligently and hard for generally different reasons than her past once did. Yet this resolve is one that she mainly tries to apply to her work and goals, as she is still very much human. The risk of working herself to the bone or such is very much a realistic thing, and if something got to her badly enough one might see flashes of how she used to be all those years ago. Only flashes, but flashes of a seriously bad time/state all the same.

She would be the last person to really take a compliment well, though, usually just getting nervous and trying to dismiss herself and her own contributions as simply another person trying their best. Even if her overall state has improved since her triggering at the age of twelve, and a lot of work was behind that in turn, the scars of her past aren't something that would go away in full either. She indeed still has a lower evaluation of herself still, can be prone to making a self-deprecating joke potentially at some point, and tries to retain a sense of sincere humility despite the strength she wields. This lattermost thing is done in part out of a fear of getting too prideful or cocky, though continually undervaluing herself isn’t inherently something good to do either. It leaves her feeling a certain extent lonely or distanced from others in general, even if just by some small yet distinct amount.

She is definitely more sociable and friendly and such than she once was, and this is something her two surviving friends (who have remained friends with her back home even since the incident) have been able to attest to. Among other people. She can likewise be rather empathetic, however, willing to bend an ear as well as be kind to those about her...agreeing with them or not. However, she will push back if she feels people are trying to take advantage of her or force her into a corner. She can become notably more dogged and angry in such a situation, choosing ‘fight’ instead of ‘flight’ as she once did years ago.

Appearance: (Two different links are below, just in case.)

Original Link

Imgur Link

Biography:

No matter how good she looked, no matter how hard she tried to learn and do her best at things, it would all never be enough in the end. The most beautiful child in the family, the second most intelligent beyond her genius older sister, and yet it wasn't ever enough. The pressure to succeed above the rest was held over her head each and every day, and yet no matter how much she studied or the programs she was in it was not enough. The best grades, the best performance in every fashion was expected of her. To let down the ever more weighty expectations of her parents was something that would spell the end of herself. It would spell being a failure. A nothing. Becoming nothing. Existing as nothing. A fraud, clad in the visage of something that once had potential. She held up her appearance in front of others well, but behind closed doors with her siblings and around her few close friends the exhausted eyes and depression would emerge in their grim honesty. Those who stuck with her tried to help keep her afloat, but she always felt bad for it. Like she didn't deserve the care or assistance. She felt the love was wasted on her, like she wasn't worth the good things. Life hadn't always been like this, but as she’d gotten old enough the pressures had been ramped up. How had her older siblings survived this? By letting the pressures fall onto her so they could live freer lives. But she couldn't. She couldn't let her younger sibling go through it, but she didn't want to either.

It was tearing her apart from the inside out, and yet she couldn't see anything in herself but a monster when she looked in the mirror. No matter how much she exercised, no matter how much she did to make herself look good, no matter how much she did to put on the best appearances and graces. Twisted flesh, a famiscile of humanity, a scrap that would one day meet her doom in the endless depths of failure. A grand self-loathing, but one that very much existed nonetheless. Her parents had come from almost nothing, yet had eventually risen to upper-middle-class status through their lives. Yet in their desire to raise their kids to even better lives, to not have to worry about all they’d faced and more, they had placed insurmountable pressures and expectations on them. Pressures and expectations they strictly clung to alongside their fears for their children, blind to the consequences they couldn’t imagine happening and blamed on other factors because they couldn’t handle the alternative.

Then came the day she went on that school summer trip overseas at the age of eleven, heading to Hong Kong to visit the area. It was in part an escape, a vacation paid for by the parents of the kids on the trip. Seeing a new place, getting new experiences, and what her parents had valued most....visiting a scientific facility tied to some company her parents were hoping for her to eventually work at. Here she was, in a foreign place and far from home, getting away for a bit, and yet she would ultimately learn that her parents would be waiting at the airport on the last day to be chaperones for the group’s trip home. It would send her into a small panic, there on the morning of the last day of the trip, all after she had been relaxing a bit with her friends and had begun to unwind. But no, she’d heard the other chaperones in the hall discussing it.

Yet just as she stepped out with a couple of friends to get some fresh air, mostly at their urging before they all had to go to the airport, what had once been a peaceful but busy morning would turn sour in a heartbeat. Disaster, as it were, would come to her this time-...

…

…

…







Her parents and herself, even her two friends, would be found as survivors in the aftermath of the attack. Among others. Yet they were the lucky ones compared to most of the field trip’s members. After two months of care and observation, she would be allowed to go back home with her parents after they’d stayed around to be with her. After she and the other survivors all made their way back home, arriving at a small celebration held for them at the airport, a memorial would be held for the dead only a week later. Not all showed up for it, but she and her parents were noted as being among those who were capable of doing so.

From here life would change, even change everything she'd known before. Her parents, herself, everything. The pain and ache of those years of stress, lots of ensuing therapy both mental and physical, parahuman counseling and power practice, and lots of talking with her own folks about things long kept buried on both sides of the gap. All out in the open over the next six years. It would take several years of notable work and effort, but by the time she turned 17 years old her mental state would find itself a far call from back then or prior. Likewise her parents and family would be very much changed, and for the first time in years they could speak with one another in ways they never had been able to before. Even so, the scars and lessons of the past were not things any of them could ignore…they would last for a lifetime. But from this would come learning. And from learning strength.

Eventually she would put in to join the Wards, the desire to build up more good in the world by using what she could do having come to the forefront of her mind. In fact, it had become her own goal that even her parents wholly supported. Her own chosen path. It was something she’d have never been able to dream of or imagine at the age of eleven, and yet now it was a reality. A grim one, but a reality. However, the flow of some last-second paperwork and forms would put a wrench in the works. In the end it would delay her joining up with the rest of her peers, much to her chagrin, though it has not dulled her intent or goals at the very least.

Power:

{{Classification: Breaker (Brute 9/Thinker 6/Mover 3)}}

Activating her power, Eleanore takes on an idealized form of herself. Gorgeous, curvaceous and impossible to ignore. Literally glowing, her eyes an unnatural, but stirring orange-gold. Sculpted, yet at once not unappealingly muscular, this form--upon close inspection--is not actually composed entirely of flesh. Instead, exotic veins of orange-gold crystal draw intricate patterns across her visage. Clothes/costume/belongings are included into the form when she shifts (including her prosthetic leg). Her eyes likewise glitter unnaturally with refracted light.

While in this state, any wounds, including lost limbs, are replaced entirely by crystalline matter. Painless in this state, Eleanore gains a form of super strength and drastically enhanced durability. Yet, rather than be physically immovable, she is rendered lighter than air and so permeable to energy--kinetic or otherwise--that attacks simply diminish as they strike or pass through her. As a side effect of this, Eleanore is also capable of willingly/passively ignoring forces that would typically act on her person, such as gravity, allowing her a form of highly maneuverable--like 20 mph max speed--flight.

Finally, Eleanore's power affords her two other subtle, if potent, abilities:

• The first of these makes her hyper aware of her body and the attention of the presence of everyone and everything around her. Functionally this amounts to extreme bodily awareness/control and a precise understanding of anything occupying space within a small 4 meter radius of her person.
• Additionally--and particularly subtle--is the fact that her power gives her preternatural memory and learning efficiency. While this has no clear effect at first, it can result in the ability to rapidly adapt to situations, combat or otherwise.

However, all this power comes at a steep price for while she can remain in her breaker form for an exceptionally long time, when she exits it her power exacts its cost. Non-fatal injuries reappear and her bodily awareness takes time to fade, resulting in often debilitating pain. The limb she lost during her trigger is once more gone, the crystal that replaced it in her breaker state, dissolving into nothing. Yet, though not a discrete or obviously power-related effect, the crushing weakness of her physical and mental capabilities comes rushing back as soon as she exits her form. All that proficiency, coordination and competence gone, she's returned to her pitiable all-too-human state and as if her trigger wasn't years behind her...the emotions come rushing back.

While these effects fade with time, they tend to lend the user towards maintaining their breaker state as often as possible to avoid them.

Yet, if overused, the state itself begins to warp. The beauty becomes inhuman with extensively prolonged use (days or many hours), taking on an uncanny valley sort of effect as it subtly twists over time. Coordination and awareness of her person becomes...unreliable, failing unpredictably. Awareness of one's surroundings becomes crushing, twisting to make her aware of people's every movement, their gaze, their attention as it pushes her mind to remembering the judging gaze of her parents.

After all, you know what they say. Great power comes with great responsibilities...and in this case, that responsibility is crushing.





Skills:

• Cooking - Is actually a very good if not also naturally talented cook in general, for someone of her age or not, in part due to the years of classes before her triggering and then years afterward under better conditions. Can be said to be a form of stress relief for her, once a coping mechanism of the past that has become a more healthily-managed one by current times. But if you see her stress baking three dozen cookies, or something extraordinary like that whilst she is on her own or not making them for some occasion or intent, check if she’s ok…she is most likely stressed out about or focusing a bit too much on something.
• Music - The violin and piano are her instruments of choice, having been drilled in them and even now having some rather solid skills with them for her age. Picked up the former of her own volition after years of stressful classes with the latter, though with time and work with therapy the latter came to finally become something she does enjoy and practices as well by current times. Not as good at music as she is at cooking by a distinct margin, but she still enjoys it.
• Exercise - A thing she did as part of her life before the trigger event, but likewise worked with years of therapy into something she finds relaxing and wants to keep up with in a healthy manner. A far healthier manner than she once did at an even younger age. Took up swimming where she used to only do running, and whilst she does use a treadmill these days she has become a more solid swimmer and used it to learn how to help control and pace her breathing.
• Sewing/Knitting/Crocheting - With deft hands and fingers, she picked this up post-trigger-event as a sort of hobby. Something to help manage her anxieties and stress as well to some extent, which she has become reasonably good at within the last five years as she's come to take a liking to it.

Other:

• Her favorite pets are cats.
• Her favorite food ranges from savory Italian and Italian-American dishes, to Mediterranean dishes with fish or feta cheese, to the like. When it comes to cooked food at home versus takeout, she most often enjoys things of the home-cooked variety but isn't a snob about takeout either. Albeit she isn't much a fan at all of rather spicy fare.
• The beach is her favorite place to go for vacation.
• Wears a very well-covering but simple/durable mask before transforming, as she looks far different in her Breaker state and it hides her identity fully, which is integrated into her Breaker form by the power itself and hides her appearance when she de-transforms.
• Height = 171cm

---

[APPEARANCE]
Morie's 167cm frame is most commonly hidden beneath hoodies, jackets, skirts, leggings, and boat shoes or sneakers, leading to her giving off a sense of effortless beauty--though she very much puts effort into her looks. A beauty mark sits beneath her left eye, and she is rarely seen without hairpins keeping her bangs organized. She usually ties her hair back in a small ponytail when doing anything physical.


[PERSONALITY]
Morie can give off an unapproachable aura, often looking annoyed or tired. This shell, though, is very easy to get past. The slightest bit of kindness--even sometimes a simple compliment--can quickly melt away her icy demeanor. Despite her best efforts to be aloof, Morie is shockingly clingy and soft-hearted. Though she often has difficulty communicating with words, her expressions and actions do more than enough to show her true nature as a caring ally and friend. Morie is one to nearly never pin blame on another, always being the first to apologize. A tendency to overanalyze little things can often control her, and that is especially true when something goes wrong--she will immediately look inward and pick apart every mistake she believes herself to have made, which can quickly sour her mood. Just as quickly, though, kind words can pick her back up--she becomes attached to people easily, even before she realizes it herself.
The girl is very quick to sacrifice for the sake of others, finding happiness in doing so through the happiness of those she aids. This trait, along with her general disposition, makes her a very easy soul to manipulate and take advantage of. Morie has recognized this 'doormat' aspect of herself, and it is one of the reasons she tries--and fails--to be distant. Realizing she's been used is a crushing feeling to the girl, not helped by the fact that she can hardly even think to say 'no' without feeling herself panic. The thought of upsetting others, often even if they've upset her, paralyzes her. In short: as much as she desires to be close to others, she's scared to be.
When she speaks, she is rather slow and deliberate, needing to be focused on being clear with what she means and avoid stammering.
Notably, Morie excels under pressure. The high of adrenaline coursing through her makes her feel strong, the fear of failing something she deems to be important to her focuses her mind. She can come off as a different person when the chips are down--a person she personally likes better, leading to her being a bit of an adrenaline junkie. Being a hero is a pretty good way to get her fix.

[BACKSTORY]
Morie's earliest memories pertain to the teasing she endured due to her stutter. She's told she was a loud and outgoing child in her earliest years, but that her free spirit had been dampened by the treatment from her peers--easy enough to believe, considering her natural inclination to being friendly with others that she stifles to protect herself.
She livened up around the age of six when finding herself the older sister of a pair of fraternal twins, taking to the role with joy. Due to complications with the twins' birth, they were both frail and prone to illnesses, which made life difficult for the family. Morie did all she could to help, taking an interest in medicine and self-teaching herself anything that she thought might be helpful in caring for the twins. She spent much of her free time watching over them, and just generally trying to be the best big sister she could be.
As she aged into her tween years, she worked on her stuttering and kept mostly to herself and her family. Though with few friends, she was happy with her life, any loneliness kept at bay by her siblings.
Things got harder as the twins' condition worsened. They became sick more often and for longer. What little Morie knew was not nearly enough to help them as much as she needed to, feeling more and more like all she could do was offer them small moments of happiness with the time they spent together, and watch them suffer. As time went on, it became clear what their ultimate fate would be, and Morie's parents spoke with her often about the situation to try to help the girl understand and mentally prepare--as if such was possible, when her life had revolved around her little brother and sister.
The uncaring inevitable came to pass, first taking Morie's six-year-old sister. Morie thought she understood that there had been nothing she could do... and for a short while she was able to pretend she believed that--kept a straight face for her brother while he was still here, acted the part of the strong, reliable, loving older sister as well as she could manage. When time came to take him away too, though, the cracked glass shattered.
It wasn't her fault, but that didn't stop her from looking back on everything--analyzing every moment she had spent. She wished she had learnt more to help, wished she had spent more time with them in general, wished she had been not just a good sister, but a perfect one. She wished she had given them more happiness in their short lives. She would've given her everything for them to have been healthy, but she hadn't done enough. It didn't matter if she had been capable of that or not--she hadn't done enough.
So caught in the web of her own mind, Morie began to feel like she was failing her parents as well, thinking she was unable to help them grieve and comfort them in her state, though she made efforts to. It added to the crushing weight on her that she was powerless to budge despite her desperation to escape.
The only relief Morie found was in a longtime family friend who had met her father in college, a man named Henry. He was a psychologist who was good at what he did, which Morie found out first-hand as he spent more and more time with the family during their hardships. He was able to slow the spiraling, negative thoughts Morie drowned in, and she found herself hoping he was able to help her parents in a similar manner, where she could not.
It turned out he couldn't. Morie was spared seeing any evidence of the event, but she was whisked away from school one day, and by the end of it she had learnt her parents were dead, a murder-suicide.
It was sudden--and unbelievable to Morie--but the more she listened, the more she was convinced by others that the explanation that her father had finally snapped from losing two of his children was reasonable. At least, as reasonable as anything could sound in her upturned world. The guilt of failing her siblings came back anew, Morie wishing she had been able to pull herself out of her own sadness enough to help her parents.
Morie was the last of her family, because she was selfish and weak and always preoccupied with herself. Guilt and self-loathing gripped her. She saw no way to shut down her hostile mind, save for her death--
The family friend, Henry. A familiar face, willing to talk to her. As before, he helped. Not entirely. Not perfectly. But talking to him somehow helped, when nothing anyone else said could even register in Morie's mind. He adopted her, and helped her begin to recover. Slowly, ever so painfully slowly, Morie began to come to grips with her reality.


Morie kept herself pointedly distant from her new foster family, but they treated her well, and kept her from fully shutting out the world, instead encouraging her natural inclinations to help others.
More than a little lost, but knowing she couldn't let herself stop for fear of giving up, the now fourteen-year-old Morie focused her attention on her newfound powers. As she explored them, she reached out and met other powered individuals, being pulled into some minor crime to fit in with the crowd. Quickly though, she found herself feeling unappreciated and only wanted for her ability to heal wounds. On top of that, despite all that happened, even minor crime made Morie feel terribly guilty. She had spent much of her life striving to be a role model for her siblings, and only found herself wishing she could have been even better for them after they were gone--at her core, she was not a villain.
That group of petty-crime doers split, a couple along with Morie looking instead to do good with some extra recruits. This group went on for longer, and Morie felt like she fit in more, but eventually things fell through again. Made to feel unimportant, unliked, whatever. It was a group of young teens. Not much more could be expected.
Tired of the unorganized and ineffective ragtag teams, Morie reached out to the PRT, wondering if someone her age could help against villains in at least some official capacity.
It turned out there was an opportunity for more than she could have hoped for: The Wards.
The whole thing was not a hard sell to the girl. Soon enough, Morie was packing her things, saying goodbye to her foster family to move to Redline, Maine. Fashionista offered to house the girl, at least for the time being, which Morie accepted after a brief show of hesitance--the woman made it difficult to be guarded around her, which was a trait that quickly began to work on endearing her to Morie despite any appearances the teen put up.

---

[POWERS]
Current Designation: Striker 6 (Brute 4), Master?

Extra Copies:
Morie can create lifeless exact replicas of herself. There doesn't seem to be a hard limit to how many she can create, but each one takes about two weeks to complete while Morie goes about her day-to-day life. She can speed up the process by focusing on the task, capable of creating a copy in about 12 hours at her fastest, though this drains her energy quickly and makes her ravenously hungry. A small amount of her power is also required to keep copies from natural bodily decay, meaning too many in storage will also keep her permanently tired.
Morie can instantly transfer her consciousness to any one of these copies to control them, but can only control a single one at any given moment, the body she comes from becoming a lifeless copy. So far, she's made a point to keep track of her original body and always return to it, but in theory she could lose that body and be mostly unaffected due to these being exact copies (at time of creation).
When a copy dies, Morie's consciousness is sent back to the last living body she controlled.

Biological Assimilation:
Morie can absorb biological matter she comes into physical contact with and make it wholly part of her own body. This includes wounds and illnesses, taking on the injury and the bacteria/viruses herself, healing her target in exchange.
Similar to her other power, this is a slow-to-use ability that shines with prep time. Given a few hours, she can fully absorb another human body (one of her copies always, up until now), using and storing the matter to heal herself and become twice as strong, fast, and durable. The more matter she assimilates, the more these factors increase, with no known limit yet. Due to needing to make physical contact with the matter, this isn't something she can do passively, unlike her copy creation.

Generally, she stores a few copies that have absorbed around 10 other copies of herself, making those bodies 10x as strong as her baseline human self. One copy she continues to feed, seeing if she can reach a limit to her power, though progress is slow due to both the time needed per copy, and due to the fact that she often uses those copies to cure others of their injuries and ailments. This 'Super Morie' body is currently at fifty-three copy assimilations.

[SKILLS]
- Relatively athletic for her age and size, due to training for the past couple of years.
- Basic hand-to-hand combat knowledge, basic training with weapons.
- Is musically inclined. Shy about it, but has a nice singing voice and enjoys learning and practicing various instruments during her rare free time. Prone to humming quietly to herself, and tapping her feet or fingers to a tune only she can hear.
- Driven. Having Morie by one's side is having a steadfast ally that one can rely on. She might not be a particularly fast learner, but she's a dedicated one.
- Not so much a skill rather than a side-effect of her powers, but Morie exhibits very little fear in regards to dangers to herself. She still experiences fear, and physical pain is never a pleasant experience, but it's easy enough for her to talk herself past any trepidation. This can lead to her being a surprisingly vicious and ruthless adversary--after all, trading an eye for an eye is nearly always favoured for Morie. As an aside, she still very much experiences acute fear for the safety of others.

[OTHER]
- Morie has something of a morbid fascination with death (and pain, to a lesser extent), due to her history and powers. She's already experienced dying herself multiple times--which isn't something most people can say--while at the same time does not have to fear permanent death even in terrifyingly dangerous situations.
- 4. ♫ | 5. ♫

---

Name
Demi Stevens

Alias
Bastion

Nicknames
"Absolute Unit", Natalie
"Dems" (No one actually calls her that)

Age
16

Gender
Female - She/Her

Personality
To call Demi headstrong would be an understatement. She always puts her best effort forward, confident that she’ll see something through to the end before it even starts. While not necessarily the “bubbly and cheery” kind of person, Demi is undoubtedly a positive person who can always be counted on to take things seriously and do what has to be done. Demi likes to look out for other people, making sure they’re okay and providing a shoulder for them to learn or cry on if they need. When she’s in costume as Bastion, she shows absurd courage in the face of danger. Demi is a diehard, absolute true believer of a cape with a near obsession for heroics, dedicated to helping others and stopping villains like a machine. All of this makes her seem like a classic example of what a hero should be, but it hides some less glamorous things that she isn't proud of.

Demi doesn’t admit it, but she feels like she needs to be a hero. She cares deeply for other people, but Demi tends to experience feelings of self-loathing and insecurity when she isn’t out there in the streets putting up a fight against villains. She’s spent so much time as Bastion that sometimes she struggles to deal with just being Demi. She often pushes herself to do things more harshly than she should. While Demi is smart enough to not do something without proper caution, she has a deep workaholic streak, and derives self-validation from her actions as a hero. Demi's fixation on being a cape and getting things done leads her to pushing things too far even when any other sane person would stop and take a break. To anyone witnessing this, it simply seems like Demi is just a very very proud and determined cape. Which she is, despite the self-destructive tendencies that she hides deep down.

Appearance
She’s 5”11’ and built like a Ford F-150, what more do you need to know?

Biography
Roughly two years ago, a cape showed up to Redline. No one knew where she came from, but she immediately set out to do what all capes did. Bastion's appearance went mostly under the radar for a few months until she got to know what villains were where, at which point the new hero began making moves against every villain she could find. This was nothing out of the ordinary, heroes took the fight to villains all the time, but Bastion was quickly noted for always being at the scene of the crime. Bank robbery? Bastion was there. The Knights Aspirant are trying to take a piece of territory? Bastion was there. You name it, she showed up to as many conflicts as she was physically able to and got on board with heroes who were planning something whenever she could. One of her more notable feats of heroism involve a fight in the heart of the city, where Bastion hauled a power armored goon off of the floor and threw him at another power armored goon as if he was just a sack of flour. Both armor suits were smashed out of commission, and the bad guys got caught. This was undoubtedly absolutely hilarious to watch for some people who saw it on live tv, seeing a villain get broadsided with another villain, but the PRT saw this, and thought it was odd for someone with that kind of skill to be running around in just a motorcycle helmet and a winter jacket for a costume. More importantly, she wasn't on their payroll.

They offered her a job, which Bastion turned down politely for reasons she didn't specify, and then went about her business. A year later, something similar happened. A bank robbery lead by a blaster named Daggershot, who made shrapnel projectiles. Bastion was there like usual, slinging shields like frisbees and slamming into the robbers like an NFL quarterback like usual, and keeping people safe like usual. Everything was normal for her, as well as the other heroes who showed up. What wasn't usual however, was the fact that Daggershot managed to blast Bastion in the side when she looked away for a split second. Bastion hurled a shield into his center mass before he could put a hole in her head with those projectiles, but now she was bleeding horribly, and struggling to stand. The other heroes on the scene got her to a hospital. It was then revealed that Bastion was only 16 years old, and that her parents "weren't around." She didn't explain what that meant, but for the last two years, this kid had been running around without any regard for her own wellbeing doing the job of a hero, and she didn't even have a home. The director of the PRT found out about this, and went to talk to her about it.

Despite the many questions she was asked, Bastion didn't give a lot of personal answers. She never told anyone where she came from or who her parents were. They simply weren't a consideration, especially since they were the cause of her trigger event. Bastion spent a week in the hospital, and during this time, she and the director got to know each other enough that Bastion was offered a place on the Wards team coming together. She was always known as one of those capes that jumped at every opportunity to do something good for others, and so Bastion accepted after she recovered from the quasi-shotgun blast in her side. Besides, someone on this team needs to know what they're doing.

Powers

Brute | Shaker(Trump)

Other
Bastion's favorite powers are the ones that capes like Guardian and Amazon have, because all the cool heroes are either absurdly buff or make forcefields. Ask her how she knows.

Name: Beverly Hillshire

Alias: Workshop

Nicknames: Bev, Hills

Age: 17

Gender: Female

Personality: Beverly can come off as...Hyperactive. When she's talking to others, in stark contrast to most other Tinkers, she's usually the one with the reins, dragging the conversation around as she bounces from topic to topic with mile-a-minute thoughts pouring from her head and through her mouth, and when she's on her own, you can usually catch her muttering to herself more often than she isn't.

Most of the time, she's completely unaware that she has devolved into utter rambling until someone can get her to shut her trap. She doesn't really do it intentionally; more of a side effect of her ability, and Bev does her best to keep it in check when she can. If you can get by her babbling, she's a southern sweetheart who just wants to do her best to be useful to other people, and she takes the opinions of others to heart...Perhaps more than she should. While outwardly quite put-together, energetic and excitable, her deep-seated need to be needed, and to have the appreciation of others, is something that both drives her and can drag her into dark places.

While not a complete sheep, Bev is quick to fold under positive reinforcement, and as such could be manipulated in these ways. She does her best to be her own boss and use her head, but in spite of being a Tinker, she finds her heart does most of the thinking for her...For better and worse.

Appearance: Miss Hillshire is clearly one of a good handful of high school gals to finally hit that final growth spurt, and the results speak for themselves. She stands at a respectable 5'9 ft., and weighs in at around 155 lbs. Which might be a bit of chub, but she's got plenty of muscle! Not quite the kind you get working out or the sort, but the kind earned by hard labor and hand-crafting affronts to the laws of the universe. Her skin is lightly tanned from hidden years making Tinkertech in the shipyard. Her face, while toughened by the nature of her work and a few experiments gone rogue, maintains a certain softness to it, and her sharp red eyes, while at first perhaps seen as fierce and intimidating, instead speak to her joyful nature as they sparkle with mirth in the heat of her passion projects, and a mass of curly brown hair that manages to cascade all the way to her waist.

She tries to keep her clothing simple, both because she doesn't particularly care about it, and because it'll make her work easier the less it gets in her way. She normally wears a teal blue sports top alongside a comfortable pair of black zip-up leggings. On her waist, she might normally have a dark blue hoodie tied there, but in the colder months of the year, she's usually wearing it instead. Lastly, she wears heavy-duty black boots and fingerless gloves. The boots might look a bit too large for her, but she likes them because they're airy and still keep the heavy snow out. Mostly.

As for her costume, well...She didn't think that far ahead. She's thinking maybe some kinda big mask? Maybe like a welder's? Ooh, that'd be cool! And probably some satchels or a bag for all the stuff she likes carrying around. That'd be good. And probably something better than her civvie clothes to cover her, though she's clueless on what. She'd make armor or something, but those don't come out too often....Oh well! She'll figure something out.

Biography: Beverly and her family weren't originally from Redline; about eight or nine years back (she's sorta forgotten), they moved from a quiet town in Oklahoma to way, way up to Maine because her pa got a job offer they couldn't resist. It hurt a bit, because she was happy with where she'd been from. Had some good friends, was doing well in school, getting involved in the neighborhood....But, well, some things just gotta happen.

She didn't fit in as well here, and the situation around the city was completely different from what she'd grown up with; it was scary, but more pressing for someone like her, it was confusing. She liked being able to understand things, yet she couldn't wrap her head around all the chaos, the gang wars, and most of all, the villains. But like an ostrich with its head in the sand, she decided to ignore these things that just couldn't fit into her brain, and move on with life.

Long story short....Redline happened.

Bev lost her pops, and her mom wasn't taking it well. Didn't help that shortly afterwards, her Tinker ability had manifested; for weeks it left her mind in shambles, sandwiched between her tidal wave of emotions and a disgusting flow of blueprints, concepts, and a desire to create. It's always those early weeks that are the hardest.

She learned to cope by hanging out in the shipyard. Her ma would've had her head if she knew about it, with all the gang stuff that went down this side of the city, but it kept her out of her spiraling parent's hair for a bit, and let her organize her disheveled thoughts as she took bits and pieces from scrapped ships, and began building...Things.

There was no rhyme or reason, and it pissed her off. She could never make what she wanted to make; only what her stupid head decided to. While eventually she grew to enjoy the process, of letting her mind wander and design whatever it fancied, she still holds some bitterness in how it functions. Still, she looked on the bright side; at least she wasn't a villain. Heck, when a member of The Mutants accidentally got ahold of something she had been working on, it put them on ice. Literally, like a cryogenic grenade. Making an impromptu citizen's arrest and not sticking around to be questioned, Bev was a bit giddy at the excitement building in her. Building her tech was one thing, but getting to see it in action was something else altogether!

Eventually, Beverly became anonymously known as The Shipyard Tinker, and due to the peculiarity of her devices and the mystery of her nature, none of the ill forces present attempted to pull anything with her. Heck, sometimes she even got to make small deals with some vigilantes or, on the rare chance, honest-to-gosh heroes who were interested in some Tinkertech to give them an edge. It was fun while it lasted!

Earlier this month, however, her little hideout was spoiled by Mr. Fukuda, though he made her an offer she couldn't possibly refuse. The Wards Initiative?! Becoming a proper Cape?! Working with OTHER CAPES HER AGE?! The thought was static to the mind and a charge to the heart. She hadn't managed to make much friends in her time at Redline, but surely this would be a good chance, and she'd get to help the good guys on top of it all! AND have access to PRT resources, even including the work of other Tinkers?! There was no way she was passing this up!

Powers/Skills:

[DESIGNATION: Tinker 5 (tentative 2 in any other given Classification)]

Chaos Creations: Beverly's Tinker talents are nearly limitless in thought, but quite so in practice. She generally does her best work making cheap, quick-and-easy devices that possess a short shelf life if not give consistent proper maintenance. However, her process also involves some...Peculiarities. For one, she has no conscious say in what exactly she makes, essentially Tinkering by instinct over anything else, and in fact has made things in her sleep more often than she'd admit. This means she just makes what she makes, and has to roll with it. This also means she generally doesn't know the exact applications of any given thing she makes, though she can usually intuit it well enough.

This also comes at the cost of focus. If she does attempt to properly work through a design and put her mind into it, it tampers with her natural process. Anything she makes this way generally becomes of much poorer make, more ineffective, or prone to being incredibly unstable and/or dangerous. The only things she can put some level of intent behind are builds based around the scanning and monitoring of vital signs, though she's hesitant to elaborate on why this might be.

Hands-On Learner: While not classified as being apart of her power (yet), Beverly possesses deft hands and is skilled at hastily putting things together, or taking them apart, and seems to gain a decent idea of how to do those processes to any other tech she lays her hands on. This might just be a talent of hers, but the PRT are still debating this being a possible Thinker, or perhaps even Striker, part of her capabilities.

Cooking Intuition: Beverly has gone on record to claim she has little to no experience cooking or learning to cook, but has shown a strange aptitude for it not unlike her ability to inherently Tinker without much thought, though thankfully without the edge of randomness. In other words, she's a very competent cook, and has a small hobby of making and baking sugary delights on some off-time, as she finds sweets helpful to give her an extra boost getting through her process.

Well-Built: While nowhere near superhumanly strong or fast, having to haul around all her junk by hand, and working it by hand, has built some impressive muscle on her, making her stronger and quicker than one might anticipate; though it's not like she's well-versed in hand-to-hand or anything.

Other: As her time as The Shipyard Tinker, she got offers extended to her from both The Mutants and Knight Aspirant. While she seriously considered KA, she ended up turning both of them down. Hopefully they don't put two and two together when Workshop makes her debut...

Name: Miko Danvers

Alias: Yandere, The Seven's Sister, The Second.

Nicknames: "That Crazy Bitch", "The Pink One", "The Girl in the Skirt", "Twin-tailed Terror", "Her".

Age: 16 (physically) (true mental age unclear; given her vast skillset, assumed 20's)

Gender: Female

Personality:
Cheerful and peppy on the surface, she is nonetheless equally capable of becoming psychotic and murderous on a dime and is incredibly unstable and overconfident. Despite any evidence to the contrary, Yandere is under the impression that she is acting to save the world and seems to believe that she can avert some unnamed "apocalypse", which she has failed at multiple times. Assuming her claims about her power are correct, this, understandably so, would be the primary reason she is batshit insane.

Despite this, under the vast majority of circumstances, Yandere is incredibly well composed and controlled in her mannerisms. If she's acting eccentric, that's usually because it's what she wants others to see. She often wears a gleeful smile, a smile that tends to stretch to psychotic levels once the adrenaline hits and battle is joined. It is rare indeed that Yandere ever truly takes her opposition seriously. After all, with her power, why should she? Even when seriously injured or seemingly inconvenienced, all she will do is smile and smirk, even offering a peppy mocking congratulation or two. She is quick to dole out almost genuine sounding praise to her opposition, but anyone with any conception of her power can be well aware it's likely not anything she's not seen before and clearly overcome.

Under no circumstances has Yandere ever shown a single iota of genuine fear or distress that has been witnessed past the infamous day of her Trigger Event. Though, she will sometimes feign such with her opponents to lull them into a false sense of security. Truly, given her physical limitations, it is all too easy for others to underestimate her, especially first-time opposition. She is a crafty schemer at heart, always poking and prodding at her opponents verbally, teasing out their mindsets to determine if they are worth keeping around for the "Grand Plan" and the betterment of humanity as a whole. Even while she's having a rip-roaring good time messing around with her enemies, she's also scouting them as allies in her quest. If they pass, she's more than willing to throw down the hatchet to try and bring them into the fold, and with her ability to effectively wholly analyze the psyches of others through trial and error, to an outsider, she may appear to say exactly the right things at the right time to make her case seem all too reasonable.

Regardless of her methods or seeming amorality, Yandere desires to save humanity above all things. To her, it is her one true calling in life, and no sacrifice is too great in the service of that goal. Her only worry, one she has pushed to the backburner for the time being, is what she's going to do with herself once she succeeds. What will she do after? What burnt bridges will she need to rebuild? Once she's done the deed, what is left for her? What kind of proper profession would she like to undertake? And once she reaches the end of her life, can she even die of old age, or will she be forced to redo things all over again?

Existential concerns aside, some part of her hopes that she'll make some genuine friends along the way and actually have comrades and loved ones at the end of things. While saving the world certainly takes priority for understandable reasons, she'd also like to have a boy-or girl-friend to settle down with. Honestly, at this point, she's not super picky either way; it's just a little difficult to get people to take your advances seriously when you're an infamous serial killer. She'd like something genuine, but maybe that's asking a lot...

Sigh. "Ah well, here I go a killing again~!"

Appearance:
Civilian: A 5'6", 140 lb. raven-haired half-Japanese-Caucasian teenage girl with blue eyes, she is someone who has been thoroughly smacked with the puberty stick in... certain areas (cough) She is athletic beneath her oft deceptively covering wear, despite appearing almost as delicate as she is busty, and wears her hair in single ponytail. Even in this state, she tends to favor bright, cheerful colors, and she has enough taste to avoid being garish about them. Though, dark tops with light bottoms also appeal to her. Skirts are an unironic staple of her wardrobe, along with a variety of snug, form-fitting sweater shirts, sometimes turtle-necked. She usually has at least a few knives concealed somewhere on her person.

Cape: In all reality, her civilian guise is donned with incredible rarity. Most of the time, she boldly goes where she pleases with her hair dyed a bold pink and pulled up into a pair of ponytails with bowed ribbons. Aside from that, she typically wears a now ominously distinct white and blue Japanese schoolgirl outfit. On first glance, it would be assumed to be a cosplay, if not for the fact that Yandere has taken a known trip across the sea before to obtain it by questionable means. Certainly, if nothing else, she can't be said to half-ass her image. In addition, she dons an intimidating number of knives, both throwing and not, beneath her skirt strapped to her upper thighs, and she can usually be seen with a book bag slung over one shoulder and sometimes a fanny pack hanging from the back of her waist, the latter usually only in the case she seems to be expecting a fight. The fanny back is usually holding some handy odds or ends that just conveniently aid her situation as if she were fucking Dora the Explorer.

While her power and infamy amongst government agencies means having an actual secret identity is generally a pipe dream, Yandere occasionally will whip out the makeup and some spare clothes and have an actual peaceful night out on the town. A casual drink with another here, a playful movie there. If she wants to disappear into a crowd, she has the means and the knowledge to make it happen, even while under intense scrutiny.

Biography:
Our story begins 30 years past. It was the early 1990's, and the chaos of the emergence of the Parahuman phenomenon had roughly settled down. After 70 years of lessons learned quickly and harshly, some level of true order had been restored to the world. Though villains had crawled forth from every crevice, heroes had risen to meet them, and the world, in turn, rose to support those heroes in whatever way they may.

The world had recovered, and though not all was well, things were improving. Until one day...

That terrible day was the first Herald attack, or as it has been commemorated in Japan, Red Day; a grim reference to the streets, running red with the approach of the goliath entity... The devastation left in its wake slew millions and left the entire nation shell-shocked and battle scarred, reduced to a 2nd world country. Though the infrastructure of the island nation wasn't completely ruined, they had been completely unprepared for an attack of such scale, and with their already low birthrate, even 30 years later, their population hadn't bounced back.

It was into this devastated nation that Maki Fuma was born. She grew up in a nation struggling economically and nationally, and she had no desire to stick around. Far from one to allow herself to be shackled be tradition or nationalism, she fled to the United States at the first available opportunity and came to settle down in the State of Oklahoma. Having come from a struggling country, Maki knew of hard word, and in the far more prosperous America, that served her well. She got a job, went to school, went to college, graduated with honors and married well, taking up her husband's surname of Danvers. The life she led couldn't have been called more than upper middle class, but it was hers and one she was content with. And soon enough, she was having her first child, a bright young girl named Miko.

As she grew, Miko came to internalize her mother's standards of hard work and determination. She learned to value the will to push through all obstacles, to never stop even if one stumbled. She learned of her mother's old home and came to enjoy indulging in their media and culture, even as she never took what she already had now for granted. She was a cheerful soul, who made friends easily and scored well enough to make her classmates wonder about the memes of Japanese grades. Her life was good, peaceful, aside from the occasional inevitable Cape shenanigans; though she was never unlucky enough to be nearby or collateral.

And then Gaia attacked.

In the aftermath, her home and family were gone, razed to the ground and crushed, the city flattened beneath the Herald's wrath. With nowhere to go and no-one to turn to, the young madwoman did what she could to discover a new purpose in life. And though it took years, years of resets and mishaps, deaths and hardships, she soon encountered it. A horror. An apocalypse in truth. What she saw in the grim-dark future of Earth Bet, she could not overcome. They were not ready... not as they were, not while weakened by the countless interpersonal wars and grudges of man, not while Heroes and Villains alike played their games, not while the Heralds were left to their own devices to further upend mankind's support structure.

Miko looked upon it all and came to know that she loved humanity more than anything else. Even if they hated her. Even if they killed her over and over. Even if they drove her out and rejected her, she wanted more for them all the same, wanted better for the world. It had taken her all too long, but even her ordeal under Gaia had not destroyed her mind and soul entirely. No, though she was reluctant to ever face the mountain again, much less a Herald at all, her will had been hardened under the pressures of life into a shining diamond of determination. She had become -if not whole- then something more than a pile of shattered glass and psychotic edges. To return was to lose everything. To stay was to lose everything. At least with the former, they would have a chance.

And so, saying farewell to what few loved ones she had, she reset. And reset. And reset. And reset. And reset again. And again...

Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.Reset.

And when she finally stopped?

She was back, the wrath of Gaia fading in the distance, her home crumbling all over again like a returning nightmare.

But she turned away from the past... and faced the future with a steeled spine and a mad glint in her eyes.

Something was coming. Something humanity wasn't ready for.

But maybe she could change that...

No matter the cost...

She had to.


Powers/Skills:

• Athleticism: Her limits are constrained primarily by her physical ability as a base human. As such, it has served Yandere well where possible to keep up a strict training regimen to push what limits she can. Her manual control of her body means, however, that she can override her muscles' natural limiters and briefly perform shocking feats of ability... at the cost of damage to herself, of course. But in the right circumstances, the trade-off is worth it.
• Insane Pain Tolerance/Willpower: Yandere's pain tolerance can best be described as: "Y E S". Due to her horrific Trigger Event and the many many horrible deaths and injuries she has effectively suffered since and had permanently carved into her memory, she will not so much as flinch in the face of full-throttle torture porn levels of horrific brutality being inflicted upon her. She'll be distinctly annoyed at the inconvenience of the injury itself, sure, but it's just another day at the office.
• Martial Arts: Anything Goes: While not a proper practitioner per-say, Yandere has committed a vast quantity of hand-to-hand fighting styles to memory. She is the equivalent of a top-tier black belt even without her power informing her muscle memory, and her combat style is in turns highly unpredictable and playful or brutally efficient... and still unpredictable. Sometimes, if she's feeling cute, she'll even memorize her opponents' attacks during the fight and immediately use them in return, just to mess around.
• Polylingual: She can speak nearly every language, and those she can't, she appears to learn the basics of within subjective seconds.
• Skilled: If it can be learned by a mundane human, she probably knows the basics at a minimum, and can correct any deficiencies in what appears to be an instant. Medical techniques, piloting, gunfighting, tracking, smithing, hunting, building, cooking, parkour, operating high tech machinery and Tinkertech alike. You name it, she can do it. In the case of Tinkertech, it's quite literally just an effective matter of trial and error for her, before she appears to operate or identify it perfectly as far as anyone else is concerned.
• Unreadable: Her absolute control of her body language means that when she genuinely wants to deceive someone, it is literally impossible to see through her down to a hormonal level without a straight up truth/lie-detecting power. Technological lie detectors tend to fare no better than a regular person.
• Groundhog Day (Thinker/Shaker(?) 12): Yandere's power, which she openly boasts about, is what she claims to be genuine time travel. While proof one way or the other has naturally yet to be obtained, her power at least effectively mimics as though that were the truth. One way or the other, she is either telling the truth, or she is a Thinker of truly absurd proportions. In practice, until proven otherwise, she will be assumed to be the latter for everyone's peace of mind.
  
  Her claim is that anytime she dies -or even anytime she wants, she is thrust back in time up to a full day... and she can keep going with no cap other than the day of her Trigger Event. Her power also gives her perfect recall and muscle memory. What this translates to is that she can retread the exact steps of any and every encounter, retrying any and every hardship or failure until she wins. In essence, she is a monstrously powerful combat Thinker and Precognitive who is always living in the "winning" timeline.
  
  As a result of her perfect recall and muscle memory/control, Yandere is capable of learning nearly any skill or piece of information in what appears to be subjective seconds, even instantaneously. Her effective precognition means she can commit to absolutely insane tactics, before "undoing" the consequences and retaining all the information she has gathered. In effect, there is no system she cannot penetrate, no password she cannot divine, no secret identity too secret or sacred. If she wants to know something, it is literally impossible to stop her from learning it without storing it away off-world/dimension, and even then, you're assumedly only buying time from the inevitable. It can generally be assumed that she will always be aware of the exact limitations and functions of her opponents' powers and be prepared to counter them.
  
  Even were her active powers to be shut down, according to Thinkers, she would retain all the information and skills she has gathered, along with the imbued muscle memory, giving her a comparatively extremely favorable position from which to retreat or otherwise survive until she can regain her power and "undo" the incident.
  
  At present, there are no known methods of evading her power's detection. As her power is proven to be capable of clearly targeting even the Heralds, the vast majority of even highly specialized Strangers are incapable of evading its gaze in turn. Even when she is seemingly otherwise unaware of their location, Yandere has been noted to "fire blindly" and kill or disable potentially troublesome concealed foes without even the slightest amount of notable effort.
  
  She has proven on multiple occasions to be able to accurately predict the location of Herald attacks over a day in advance and narrow down the alternate targets in the case that the original is avoided in response to her prediction. She has also been able to determine the Heralds' specific targets/the purpose of a given attack and the fallout of failing to stop them.
• Unrestrainable (Trump/Mover 9): Yandere's power possesses an automatic trigger function, preemptively defending her from any effect that would shut down, weaken or otherwise hinder or negate her access to her power. To be clear, she is not actually immune to said effects like Null Trumps and Masters, but her power effectively ensures she always knows they are coming and allows her to never actually be caught out in a position where they can catch her. This effect triggers against more than just other powers, and it is decisive enough to prevent her from being meaningfully imprisoned, trapped, or disabled by other means, including paralysis or unconsciousness. In the case of the latter, notably sleeping, her power still triggers automatically if she would be put in a situation thereafter from which she couldn't awaken for an unnatural period of time.

Other: Favorite power sets involve time stopping or manipulation. Though, I'm becoming a big fan of speedsters as well.

Name: ????

Alias: Writhe, The Seven's Head, The First.

Nicknames: N/A

Age: Unknown

Gender: Presumed Male

Personality: Writhe is the worst kind of monster; the one that still feigns a humanity it lost long ago. If it weren't for his unnatural, monstrous appearance, wreathed in shadow with tendrils hungering for prey practically trembling in anticipation, his personality wouldn't make you suspect a thing about him. He acts casually in any situation, even when there are others in The Seven who probably want his head. He never gives off anything more than an air of confidence and aura of pure assurance; he knows what he wants to do and how he'll do it, and will never hesitate, merely...Reconfigure his ideas, if something goes out of place, or piques a new interest in him.

Underneath that cool exterior is a vile creature. His existence, even by his own words, is to cause despair for others, to drive people into the depravity he knows they are capable of; and he wants to be the one to bear witness to it. That twisted desire, paired off with an unnatural charisma, may be what draws deviants to him, and be what allowed him to forge The Six initially. He takes great pleasure in that work, and surprisingly, just as much in seeing himself thwarted, to see the 'good guys' doing their best against his horrifying odds. After all, what good would wickedness be without its opposite to pair with? Dreadfully boring. And bored is the one thing Writhe never wants to be. He can be patient, and tolerate days, months, even years of silence...But inevitably, like a predator that had been caged, only to be abruptly released, he will always pursue his base nature at the earliest convenience. A beast, but with the social graces of the best of humankind. A terrifying combination.

One thing that interests him beyond his goal are Parahumans at large. Perhaps it is because they wear those cracks of the heart, mind, and soul on their sleeves with their abilities, instead of those who Writhe has had to break himself. Perhaps he can relate to them, knowing they've each got their own little demons, whereas he has become his. Or perhaps it is merely because he understands the potential each Parahuman has; the ability to change the world for the worse. Perhaps it is all of the above. Regardless, he takes special interest in them, evident in how he fights against Powered individuals of all sorts. He...Toys with them. Striking enough to keep them off balance, but taking his time to try and pry into their psyche; to understand them. To break them. Like some kind of deranged Shadow Shrink, he works his way into how they think and act, and then decides what to do from there.

Sometimes he just lets them go; maybe he's decided they're more trouble than they're worth, or he takes enough interest in them to let them see another day, but just doesn't want them with him. On other occasions, he may try and recruit them, preying on their vulnerabilities to find what he needs to say. Others, well...He doesn't like it, but sometimes, they just aren't very interesting. Those ones he disposes of pretty quickly. Just no fun. On the other hand, sometimes he takes an interest in an individual, but can't fit them into his spots; doesn't want them to just walk off, but they can't join him, or won't. In those cases, he just tries to break them until they submit or shatter, both are enjoyable for him either way. Emotionally, physically, even mentally. All fair game to him, and he likes to mix the three together for the best and most interesting results.

Normal people, civilians, are usually beneath his interest beyond their scope in his 'games' he plays with Capes. Just dull, living their quiet, mundane lives. Not even worth prying into. On occasion, though, he may find an otherwise normal individual that he takes an interest in; sees the spark of potential. Those people, he likes them a lot. It's one thing meeting like-minded individuals...It's another altogether to make one yourself. Those impressionable sorts, who just need a push in the right direction, or a shove into a place of darkness....It's ecstacy to him, making a new member over simply finding them.

Appearance: No one is certain why he looks the way he does; presumably it has to do with his ability, but even then, it's...Off-putting. Any time he shows up, he always looks like this. A mere shadow of a human being, nearly no discernable features to him. Just those piercing white eyes, the sole feature of an otherwise featureless form. He stands around 5'9, but...It fluctuates, changes with his almost fluid moments, terrifying as they are. His form no longer seems bound by a body in the human sense...Which only adds to his monstrous reputation.

Then there are the tendrils. Like extensions of himself, tentacles of inky darkness that stretch around him, eager to act...Eager to kill. If his size is left to be questioned, then these are even more puzzling. They seem to reach out from the center of his back, coiling around him; roughly the length of his arm. However, they can go far longer than that, stretching across the length of a street to pursue his targets, dragging them back to despair...

To writhe.

Biography:

Hotel. Shadows. Money. Boss. Payment. Capes. Incident. Flames. Pain. Words. Pain. Struck. Pain. Pain. Pain....

Then Darkness.

A flash of images, with feelings that mean nothing now to the thing that is Writhe. Whatever past this man had, it was cast aside the day he became this monster, and he has no intentions of returning...If he ever could to begin with. The first thing Writhe ever did, after all, was kill one of the original four of The Guardians; Shockwave. It was a horrific scene straight from a slasher, the kind of bloodied mess that could only come from a beast with nothing to lose, and nothing to gain. All that left was violent instinct, a desire to life. For what?

......

He didn't care. He would keep living.

Eventually, he found purpose, not through his own musings, but in what he discovered he was being painted as; the terrifying bogeyman who had killed a member of The Guardians, and thwarted the rest who had tried to contain him. Fooled Guardian, outskilled Amazon, and outmaneuvered Gatecrasher. He was a menace...Perhaps that was something worth being. And so it would be.

He traveled across the United States. Capes found it impossible to pin the man down; his method of travel was untraceable, and his attacks too unrelated and abrupt. He outthought Thinkers left and right, avoiding capture and always ending up on top. Eventually, attempts to track and contain the thing that was now being dubbed Writhe were ended. They resolved to doing damage control, arriving where he would appear, control the carnage, and try to apprehend him when they could.

This game of cat-and-mouse was different from the usual stuff of Capes, because this rat bit back. And soon, other vermin flocked...

People just as twisted as he, though perhaps not in the same ways. Still, it gave him an epiphany. His goal to sow fear and raise hell would be made all the easier, and certainly more interesting, with others that wished to join. A sick little family of freaks. How fitting. Thus, the Slaughterhouse Six was born.

This has gone on for almost twenty years, with the Six (or now, The Seven) getting beaten back, though never without loss of life...And hope. Even their latest defeat in New York, costing Writhe six of his fellow freaks, was not without horrific blowback. One of them, Fallout, could control and emit radiation, and focus it into radioactive bursts of energy. A fun power, and Writhe had big hopes for what would happen when he was pushed too far. He was proven right, since he went nuclear over The Big Apple, leveling most of the city along with himself. Writhe, of course, escape.

He has been on his lonesome for a time, perhaps giving the world a chance to breath. Just meant he had to raise the stakes even more for their next appearance...And bolster their numbers, of course.

Powers/Skills:

[DESIGNATION: Stranger 6/Mover 9

REDACTED [+]

/Trump (Brute, Master, potential Thinker)]

Umbral Trespassing: Writhe's ability allows him to traverse in a 'shadow world', which he accesses by slipping into even a small spot where there are shadows to be seen, or where general darkness dominates the area. While in this area, Writhe is impossible to track and immune to nearly any form of assault, and in this area, he can traverse to any other spot where his power would be applicable and emerge there. This travel is not instantaneous, but it is far faster than he could traverse on foot. His high Mover ranking is less towards raw speed and more towards inconceivable levels of mobility. In an area of darkness, he can submerge and emerge nearly anywhere, striking from any possible location, all while practically camouflaged in the shadows, even his bright white eyes strangely remaining unseen in darkness. Writhe has been seen making unorthodox usage of this ability, such as sticking in limbs to strike out at different locations, while staying stationary in another spot, or dragging others into and through the 'shadow world', allowing him to control the locations of enemies and allies.



Other: The only concrete information the PRT has on Writhe's past is that he is almost certainly a former resident of the USA. Beyond that...He's a disturbingly large blank in history.

Name: Jennifer Isabelle Mackens

Alias: Wattson

Nicknames: Jen (considers her full name a mouthful)

Age: 17

Gender: Female

Personality:

Appearance:
Civilian:
A 5'8", 140 lb. charcoal-black-haired, brown-eyed, athletic, caucasian young woman with a lean, conditioned build. Prefers blue jeans and wide variety of dark cotton shirts or hoodies. Typically prefers solid colors and stuff without brand names plastered all over it. She lives in Redline, Maine, which is -to say the least- cold, so she also favors warm jackets, preferably with hoods for when the chill is especially biting. She dresses practical and for comfort. Style is a secondary thought at best, but she has a basic sense of color coordination and so at least doesn't come across as a visual disaster.

In a word, Jen can be described as “average”, the sort of face you can almost lose in a crowd. Her appearance seems to strike no particularly notable extremes at any given moment. While she is certainly athletic and built like a martial artist -if an obviously shapely female one, it’s almost impossible to tell beneath her baggy favored hoodies and jeans. She doesn’t bother to wash her face, but her skin is naturally clear for the most part due to healthy living. Her shoulder-length hair is hardly anything to write home about, seemingly combed to the bare minimum required to be presentable and only washed enough to not appear oily. The most notable thing about her would be her relative lack of smell one way or the other, apparently a result of unscented soaps. In outward demeanor, she is fairly mild; she doesn’t hunch, nor does she walk with her head held high, merely coasting by on the middle ground.


Biography:
Raised in a good life, there is no doubt that Jen Mackens was spoiled. She knew it and, more importantly, took advantage of it. To be sure, her life was a mostly average one, middle class at best, but she never really experienced hardship. Or, at least, nothing she would refer to as hardship. Born to the joining of a police officer and a private investigator, Jen grew up exposed to two sides of law enforcement... and wanted nothing to do with them. Oh sure, learning her father's tricks and tips was neat, but they just made it easier to solve daily annoyances. Sure, practicing martial arts for self-defense was only practical and kept her in shape, but it was only a fun hobby. One she was fairly passionate about, sure, but not anything she wanted to dedicate her life to.

Though caring, her mother could be overbearing, her standards high and disappointment in Jen's lack of ambition palpable, but Jen simply chose avoidance in response. School seemed pointless to her. Exposed to her father's often cynical words and worldview, she knew what was actually useful in the real world, that being very little of what she was tested on. Never the sort to enjoy wasting her time, her grades plummeted to just enough to get by rather than excelling, despite her objective intelligence. Scrabbling to decide what to do with her life and trying to look ahead, Jen hit a mental roadblock trying to decide where to invest her energy and where not to, trying to discern a life path that she'd never tire of. Despite pressure from her mother and the encouragement of her father as senior year dawned, Jen found herself completely unmotivated and discouraged. She came to the conclusion to settle for what she might already be good at, martial arts and potentially following her father's footsteps... to her mother’s chagrin.

Tensions were rising until, suddenly, they were cut down for a tension of an entirely different kind. Her mother had disappeared on the job. That was apparent after she didn't come home for a whole week. By the third day, Jen's father was already engaging in his own investigation, and by the fifth, Jen had managed to wring shocking answers from him. As it turned out, her mother was a Cape, a hero outside her normal work, and Jen was far from enthused. Already, she had developed a certain level of disdain for "costumed crusaders", seeing them as net drains on society, whether heroic or villainous. It wasn't necessarily that she cared about society itself, however, as she merely did how much Cape activities might impact her simple life.

Apparently, her mother had been investigating some sort of smuggling ring when she disappeared. While that hadn't actually been conveyed to her father, he had managed to figure it out on his own. One part of Jen wanted to help with her father's investigation. A part of her that loved both parents, regardless of any tensions, wanted to do her part to make sure everyone was okay. A crueler, spiteful part of her that hated being deceived briefly considered that this was as much as her mother deserved for her hypocrisy, for engaging in such a profession and expecting anything but an unfortunate end.

But it was the practical part of her that eventually convinced Jen to disregard emotional drives and approach the situation with realistic cynicism, and as such, she decided to leave well enough alone, to leave it to the professional that was her father and get on with her life. If the situation was really serious, surely the Guardians could be called in. Jen was just a schoolgirl, a normal person in a world of titans. There was no rational place for her in getting involved with something that was too dangerous for a Cape like her mother. So, she would get on with her life, hope for the best and be ready for the worst. It wasn't her business.

As someone surely sensible once said, "she missed the part where it was her problem".

And so proceeded a series of very unfortunate events

Heart stoked with a truly deep and abiding hatred she'd never experienced before, Jen would use her then hospitalized father's teachings and her new powers to go on a one-woman crusade against the criminal organization, ruthlessly brutalizing them and their operations, not for justice but personal vengeance. The capes, in particular, were disappeared, never to be heard from again. While the nature of her power ensured that actual proof of her involvement was pretty much impossible to acquire, reasonable detective work in regard to the incident would see Jen eventually meeting Director Fukuda. Jen, of course, played coy without relent, admitting to nothing, but in being effectively "outed" by the government, she wasn't in a good position to refuse their recruitment "offer". And while she couldn't technically be threatened with actionable legalities, she knew the PRT could ensure her life was a lot more difficult... and potentially find something they could actually hold over her if she put them in a position to dig further.

With her father made aware of the danger their family was potentially in, even with the destruction and overall dismantling of the organization responsible by Jen and the PRT follow-up, that would be the final nail in the coffin to Jen's enrollment in the Wards.

Powers/Skills:

• Athleticism: She is a highly athletic and agile individual with abundant stamina for extended movement/running/fighting.
• High Pain Tolerance/Willpower: She's learned to handle pain and aching muscles while taking fairly brutal martial arts, and gaining powers has only been a wake-up call to push herself to the edge time and again just in case. As long as she isn't entirely incapacitated, it's likely that she'll try to keep fighting.
• Martial Arts: Muay Thai: Even before becoming a cape, she took martial arts and reached a level where she could actually put what she knew into practice beyond spars. Her style is a brutal boxing one using knees and elbows as much as fists and feet, but she's been known to "ad lib" things or forgo form entirely to be more unpredictable. This gives her a certain awareness of where it's safe to strike the human body to incapacitate foes relatively harmlessly... or where she needs to aim to do the most damage.
• Swimming: Can swim pretty well, good enough to handle towing someone with her.
• Out of Phase (Breaker 9/Stranger 7/Striker 5/Trump 2/Mover 2/Brute 1): Jen's power is selective tangibility that moves her into what she perceives as a parallel "world", completely identical to the real one but empty of life. Her power is always active to some degree, leaving her ever so slightly "out of phase" with the world, despite her appearing completely normal to mundane means and senses. As a result of being "dimensionally divergent", she is immune to effects that would alter the level of "Shard energy" flowing through her to alter, neutralize or supplement her present powerset, whether positive or negative, and her mind is always fully out of phase, leaving her immune to abilities that would directly manipulate her mind or control of her body. Thinker powers tend to be unreliable when targeting her.
  
  Beyond her passive state, she can actively push her dimensional divergence further, resulting in varying physical tangibility until she chooses to adjust the degree or undo it. By default, she phases away from everything that she doesn't consider "her" or that she isn’t wearing or carrying, resulting in her becoming completely undetectable and intangible due to not actually physically remaining in her "world", shedding most outside power effects currently lingering upon her. In her phased state, she doesn't need oxygen, food or water, and she has an altered sense of gravity, allowing her to move like she's in space. While phased, she experiences the world as if through a watery filter, the normal world perfectly perceptible to her even if it would otherwise not be, and despite being able to still perceive the world, she is not vulnerable to indirect harm, like blinding lights or deafening sounds, all such things muted by the watery "filter".
  
  Controlling the degree of her tangibility, Jen can choose what aspects of herself remain in interaction with the world and can alter them on the fly. For example, she can allow herself to be heard even without allowing herself to be detected by other senses. She can allow herself to be seen and yet remain intangible. She can attack and physically interact with the world while otherwise remaining undetectable. However, this selective tangibility is "all or nothing" in a sense. While Jen can choose which aspects of herself interact with the world, those aspects she allows are fully vulnerable in return. If she wants to be seen, that means allowing light to hit her, which means being vulnerable to flashbangs. If she wants to strike someone or otherwise physically move something, her entire body will in turn be vulnerable to kinetic harm in general, even if she is otherwise undetectable. While she can choose what she is affected by, those choices apply to her whole body, not just individual parts of it. As such, on an offense level, she cannot, for example, partially phase through the surface of a target, living or not, and strike the interior alone, disregarding the exterior/armor/skin/etc.
  
  There is a small caveat to this "all or nothing" selectiveness in that, by default, her power doesn't phase her through the surface she is grounded on unless she chooses to, and she is capable of walking -or climbing- on normally harmful surfaces while phased without being threatened by them, despite the pseudo-physical contact.
  
  Jen cannot bring other living beings with her into her phased state, and even nonliving targets have limits. If it individually has a greater weight than her own body, she can't bring it; though she can still bring multiple items that altogether surpass that range, so long as they each individually fall below it. That being said, what Jen's power considers to be "wearing or carrying" in terms of her possession is rather lenient. So long as Jen can physically take hold of a target, whether or not it is being worn or carried by someone else, she can then phase away with what she has grabbed, stealing it from the original owner. In this way, she is able to easily disarm opponents or otherwise render them unarmored, presuming her target is within her weight limit. Jen's phased state/realm doesn't allow her to use it like a makeshift "storage", it should be noted, as anything that leaves her personal space/possession while she is phased immediately becomes unphased again.
• Threat Sense (Thinker 2): Any time Jen would be endangered in her immediate future (that is, the next 1-2 seconds), she is immediately aware that she will be in the form of a buzzing sensation. She has no prescient awareness of exactly what the danger will be, only that she, personally, in her present state, will be endangered by it. On its own, this power is fairly useless, but for Jen, it allows her enough time to fully enter her Breaker state to avoid threats. At the same time, it can act as an early warning that removing the protection of her Breaker state in a particular area will be a danger to her. This power does account for degree of threat, however, and the buzzing sensation will intensify based on how trivial or life-threatening the impending threat is.

Other: My favorite power sets involve time stopping or manipulation. Though speedsters are pretty sweet as well.

Artemisia

Name: Luna Chambers

Alias: Artemisia

Nicknames: Lunie (parents only), “Scars” (when she was a part of the Mutants/gang), Lulu (the only one she’d maybe eventually accept from other people these days who aren’t her parents)

Age: 17

Gender: Female

Personality: A person who usually says what she wants to without reservation, the sort of blunt-type and straightforward personality in the sense of not seeing any point in sugar-coating things when she feels like something needs to be or should be said/done. In that sense, she is a girl of action. She less enjoys the ‘usual girly type of stuff’ in favor of more physical activities and exercise and video games and so forth, though learning how to brush and even tie her hair up in a bun is something she’s picked up on (among a few small things) from a practicality standpoint over the last few years. At the same time, however, she isn’t the type to be so blunt about certain matters like trigger events and similar traumas. Even suffering from violence and gangs and poverty and so forth is something of a spot she’s definitely softer and more understanding about.

At the same time, she also has a certain bone to pick when it comes to her former gang. Guilt. Anger. Sadness. Frustration. It's hard to nail down her exact feelings. What she has made known is that she’s more than happy to help clean up the mess and their boss and such ilk off of the streets, perhaps one day once and for all. She wants to make things truly better for the world this time, unlike what she thought would help her do so before, and she’s dedicated herself to that ideal and goal both when it comes to the Mutants and other such things out there. At the same time, however, when it comes to her past she has likewise mixed emotions talking about it. Talking about how it was a mistake, and showing herself as proof of it among other things? Yes. Talking about the details of her trigger with other people, or other more complicated matters tied to it? No. These matters regarding her past are….much more touchy for her.

Whilst she had put years of work into her own self-control, not having been overly violent back when she was part of a gang, she has worked over the last few years to try to stem her more violent side as well. When angered enough she especially struggles with this, and it is something she has come to rather hate about herself. Not that she entirely loves herself in general otherwise.

Appearance:

Imgur Link

Biography:

It was Redline, but it was also her home. Heck, the impoverished area she lived in in particular was home to a number of people both normal or turned parahuman due to the events of their own lives. Gangs, the sound of police sirens, drugs, and the like were normalized to her from the moment she was born. Even so, her parents wished for her to find a better life beyond the neighborhood and area of the city she was born in…grow up better and live better than they’d ever had it in their own lives. She was sent to a decent public school in the city and outside of her neighborhood to learn, her parents scrounging enough money to help her get bus or other fare to get there. Anything in order to gun for the best possible future...albeit this came with its own pressures and more so expectations despite their intentions.

Yet life as it was where she lived was a reality she also had to live with, and in her particular neighborhood a certain gang would end up taking over during the early years of her youth: The Mutants. A smaller group of parahumans, bitter with the world they lived in and treatment of non-Hero parahumans and so forth, whose message and propaganda would find some ground among the children of her area. Including herself. Things such as: "Society won't accept anyone who isn't a slave of the ‘hero’ system", "We gotta make ourselves known to the world, even if it hurts em' all to do so", "Screw mundanes, those worthless sheep. Thinking they are better than us! They're right to fear us! We're better than them", "Let's take what society owes us, and rebuild everything from scratch", etc. Or whatever other kind of rhetoric they sought to use. The kind of things that people at the bottom, those most disenfranchised by the world, parahumans living in poverty, and so forth might be drawn to like moths to an alluring but red-hot flame.

But few would get the chance to survive learning that this very same flame would just as happily consume them as well. Violence. Death. Servitude. The Mutants claimed to keep the area safe from the 'mundy gangs' by making where a number of parahumans lived in her area into 'their territory' and 'a place where parahumans can be free of society's crap'. Yet it was no different than the other gangs out there. Drugs. Extortion of 'protection fees' from those living around. Stealing from wealthy stores or other places. Girls and women forced into certain ‘jobs’. Fighting with other gangs, peddling their ideology, and frankly trying to drive out and keep out both police and heroes alongside any other forms of authority other than themselves. It was just an old lie used by such groups, but this time with a new flavor, yet to many impoverished parahumans and non-parahumans left as the worst off they were convinced of a seeming hope of rising the gang's ranks and changing the world. In becoming something, someone, more. In making anything better.

Whilst there were also the inherent unsavory types that would naturally be drawn to such an organization as well, this dream they were being sold would help to grow the numbers of and replenish numbers within the gang. Yet even then the gang had a mixed reception at best within this part of ‘their turf’, and locals in her area regarded or interacted with the gang in a mixed manner. Some had siblings or parents or relatives in it, some merely turned an eye on them to avoid trouble, and others outright rejected them as just another violent group trying to exploit them with false promises and ‘beating the system’ or whatever the case was. Yet even amidst the mixed reception, Luna and her friends seemed to want to join and would do so. Promises of better money to help their parents, glory, whatever it was in the end that drew them in ultimately did so in effect.

From here, they would start off small and rather young. Carrying something to another member’s house to avoid suspicion. Petty theft. Pickpocketing. Mentoring and coaching from any surviving older members would seek to groom them into future gang initiates as they served them, preparing them and so forth. Indeed, it would begin to pull them in as they joined up and started off small. Then it was transporting small amounts of drugs to kids at school. Learning how to sneak in and out contraband from places, how to hide money and such things, etc. Luna herself still went to school and so forth as her parents wanted at the same time, often this being used to make her a way to convey substances or such to her school more so over time. At the same time she wanted to keep her parents happy, but caught in between two worlds she was becoming something much worse than they had hoped. But she coasted along with things, holding desperately to the warped perspective and idea that both worlds were necessary, and that she could resolve things one day.

By the time she turned fourteen, however, she was involved in gang activities on a wider and more violent scale, from fights to smuggling to whatever she was assigned to. Her parents were despairing about her future and their expectations for her, she’d lost at least two friends to the violence, and the gang had its expectations for her being pushed harder and harder alongside this as well. Then came the day she and some of her surviving non-parahuman peers who had aspirations to rise up the ranks were told they would be ‘tested’, all to see if any of them would be able to reach the upper levels of the gang’s hierarchy. Not many if any such candidates came back from these ‘tests’, that much they silently knew already, but those who had come out into the gang’s upper crust and had gotten past it seemed to be that much stronger, tougher, and the like. They lasted a lot longer than any lower commanders had, and rumor had it they all came out of it as parahumans themselves.

And then the moment came. After arriving at the place, they were pushed inside and told to wait in the front room before they’d be brought back for the ‘test’. It was also here that a passing hooded man came to look her over, taking special note of her before he left…and accidentally dropped a hastily-folded paper as he left as well. Seemingly a messenger from the higher-ups, from what she knew, she couldn’t help but grab up the message and take a look at it as her time for the ‘test’ came closer and closer. Indeed, by this point her peers had been called back one by one before she’d finally been left alone in the room.

However…



…once taken into PRT custody, and investigations into the initial incident were finished, Luna and her family were rapidly taken and relocated to a secure PRT site far away from Redline. Safe to say, however, this change was to be the greatest one of her life thus far. Due to her age, she could not be thrown into some kind of parahuman detention facility and was instead kept with her parents at this PRT site and under constant observation and tight guard. Likewise, her parents were initially fearful to even be in the same room as her. It was enough to keep her in a relatively dark place at first, though…a couple of visitors would soon make their faces known by visiting her.

Moving forward she was most often visited by the cape known as “Glacier”, member of the Redline hero group known as the Elementals who had been the one to escort her off the scene after her trigger event. Despite his being rather intimidating at first, and his cold demeanor and very blunt disposition each not helping the matter, he was also the only one that seemed to want to talk to ‘her’. Not trying to pry out information from her, not afraid to be in the same room as her, it was a small light when she was at the lowest point in her life in those first months. Indeed, as time went on the ‘chilling’ cape’s visits, and less common visits from Hephaestus himself also thrown into the mix, would see her begin to improve in her demeanor some more. In her own words about it all, as said years later: “He [Glacier] was a hardass from Day One, and honestly I had no idea why he’d ever come see or talk to a stupid punk like me. But he just kept it up, even when I was silent and didn’t respond or even care, and eventually it kinda clicked in my head…that’s just how he is. Social skills of a dead rat, heh, but he meant every little corny-ass bit of what he was saying to me.

Almost no one else wanted to even get close to me back then, even with plenty of guards around and armed and ready to send my brains onto the wall, at least at first. Not that I really blamed em’ for doing so..but in the end I ended up talkin’ to the guy eventually. I even talked some to old man Heph later on.”

It would take a long time to work toward it, but once she began to open up more she would eventually make contact again with her parents. Not that it would be an easy process. She would likewise eventually start talking to the PRT therapists and such, even if bit by bit. In time a legal bargain long-term was offered to her, giving information on the Mutants in return for leniency and other things, and this offer would be accepted by her after some consideration. It ensured her some kind of future, even one she frankly felt was less-than-deserved by a longshot, as well her information leading to a good number of arrests and successes against the Mutants back in Redline. But if there was one thing she knew for sure…no, this wasn’t going to be the end. That much the cape did get across to her at the very least. But the deal, and helping against the Mutants with that information, was at least a first step in her mind.

Even so, her containment was maintained still due to her legal status and so forth as determined by the courts and the PRT itself. Yet despite this certain restrictions would be relaxed, mostly over the long-term for good behavior and after proper approvals were made, over the course of the next three years. One part of these boons she acquired was use of a prepared ‘practice room’ arranged for her training, exercise, and so forth, which seemed to help her relax more as well as gave the PRT further insight into her capabilities and potential countermeasures against her to boot. There was even at times Glacier’s participation (even Hephaestus’ own participation distinctly much more rarely in such cases) that would be allowed in this room for limited ‘sparring’ matches or other approved tests under proper and full PRT supervision. She likewise would receive further education, helping her to catch up properly to her peers in terms of ‘getting an education’ as well.

For the first time in her life, she was being nothing but ‘herself’ and felt like it for the first time in a long time. Or perhaps, rather, she was realizing it all for the first time as well.

With the long-term maintenance of generally-good behavior during her time under PRT custody, and accepting the legal bargain, her prospects were noticeably improved. Yet it also took three long, arduous, and hard-fought years of progress for her to get to such a better spot. No small amount of effort required…and a constant reminder of her situation each and every day she woke up and got out of bed. Guards still around, containment still in place, sleeping and living out of a transparent reinforced containment cell at all times, and even having an ankle bracelet attached to her as a redundancy measure. Etc. At the same time, however, things had gotten better in other ways. Her parents talked to her again. She had at least two capes, Glacier (mostly) and ‘old man Heph’ (to a lesser extent) who interacted with her. She even had room to move and learn and try to make herself into something better to boot, but something that was all ‘her’ this time, and she would work hard toward that end indeed.

Yet a few months ago things would begin to oddly change once more. Notable at first was the sudden disappearance of Glacier and Hephaestus with the formation of the Redline Guardians in Redline itself a few months ago. Then came the presentation of future options for her, among which was a new and current offer for the time being to join the Wards Initiative. It would get her back out in the world again, even if back into Redline, but it wasn’t as if she’d simply be walking in the front doors of the place either on her first day. No, even after she ended up accepting the offer on her end certain measures would be needed regarding her there due to both her ‘legal/criminal status’ and certain local matters regarding her and the Muants back in Redline proper.

Power:

{{Classification: Changer (Can’t Think Of A Designation Number For This Classification Or Such RIP)}}

Changer Form: A slender, smooth, curvaceous, beautiful she-devil/succubus that is deceptively pleasing to the eye indeed. Exotic as well, even having an exotic-colored very deep blue skin color, jet black hair, and black-colored eyes with bloody-crimson-red-colored pupils in them. This form is distinctly dangerous, however.

• Instead of fingernails at the tip of each finger, each finger transforms into a tough and razor-sharp claw on the end. Same at the end of each toe instead of toenails. Likewise has a long, slim, deceptively very sharp, and whiplike tail with a finely well-tapered point on the end. Also has a singular upward-pointing or forward-pointing pair of usable horns. Teeth are also sharp and capable of rending flesh just as easily.
  
  Due to the Fang transform, however, these aspects of her Changer form undergo a unique effect. When she enters her Changer form, these 'natural weapons' start off in a weaker state. While her other abilities are still active and unchanging after the initial shift is over, though, once in a combative setting her natural weapons and fighting instincts hone in and sharpen up over the course of a battle. In other words, these aspects of her Changer form start off weaker, but grow exponentially threatening quickly as they change, develop, and literally sharpen and become more and more potent over the course of a fight. This means in a shorter battle she is still useful, but she's even more vicious and far more dangerous in a longer drawn-out conflict.
• This form has incredible if not unbelievable mobility, basically able to overcome anything in terms of mobility save for outright flying. No surface is too hard to cross at all for her, whether it be skittering/climbing up walls rapidly, leaping between surfaces or airborne objects or positions rapidly, or so forth.
  
  She is likewise faster and nimbler and quicker than any natural human, at least, outside of those Parahumans with the sort of enhanced perception and speed/reaction time powers/skills who could keep up. It is good to note she isn't "The Flash", though, or some kind of superhuman mega/super-speedster or such.
• Has skin that, akin to a cuttlefish or octopus or such, can rapidly ripple to change color, texture, and to some lesser extent/degree shape and rigidity, in order to have active camo going that can be kept up to blend in with the environment best.
  
  Allows for abrasive surfaces on the body that can be weaponized, sharpened points instead of nails or claws that are made rigid and can pierce or slice like talons.Can also use this for things like making the skin rough/coarse/sharper using this as well alongside the rippling change in texture, basically making it grazing or cutting or even worse against people without enhanced durability on contact….especially when combined with higher speeds she can move at and the force that comes with that. Can further use this to reinforce/enforce the skin to add some increased toughness/durability, or do things like make the skin incredibly slick (causing attacks to slide off, getting into hard-to-reach places, etc to that end).
• Has no scent, and her skin fully hides her thermal signature/body heat so she doesn't show up on infrared camera/infrared imaging/thermal or infrared sensors.
• Has some increased durability compared to normal humans due to the Fang Transform, but mostly just sees an increase in lethality potential from it.

Skills:

• Fighting/Combat - Having spent years in a gang, and with the evidence of her own myriad scars, she’s seen an amount of battle indeed. Cops, other gangs, other parahumans, she’s been put through the gambit and survived. From her experience, mentoring in the gang, and so forth, she’s a generally pretty competent and seasoned fighter and combatant from the hardest parts of Redline. Hand to hand, the use of knives and improvised weapons, and even firearms are all very familiar to her within the realm of fighting and combat.
  
  At the same time she isn’t like some 50 year old martial arts master, or professional soldier returned from a war, and there is definitely always room for improvement. However, her skills here are entirely practical, mentored, and honed from years of experience.
• Exercise/Parkour - Had she managed to avoid joining a gang, she might have very well opened a gym or parkour-running group of her own one day. This is the phrase to best summarize her dedication and skills regarding this area, which has even included boxing and punching bags used for exercise purposes on the side. It’s also her favorite go-to for ‘venting some steam’ and stress-relief purposes. She is no bodybuilder or such, nor planning to ever be one, but in the practical sense it is all something she’s very good at personally and makes well-practiced and good use of.
• First Aid - A skill she gained minimal practical knowledge from her time spent in the gang, but got formal training on in the last three years as well at her eventual request. Combined this has made her generally pretty competent in this area of things, both educationally and practically alike.
• Sneaking/Stealth - Smuggling contraband past security, moving about as quietly as possible, hiding from notice when being hunted down, sneaking up on people, kidnapping, petty and major theft, pickpocketing, and even kidnapping are things that she’s gained years of experience in and involvement/mentoring with from within the Mutants prior…things that she can apply even now as a Ward at least. Not things she’s proud of, but has determined to continue to hone and make use of for the purpose of good as a Ward as well. Mostly involved in how this works on the street level, though the extent of said skills brings into question just how much she was actually involved with and ended up doing during her gang years indeed…
• Her body is very well-built, but not overly bodybuilt or such, and is very solid and hardy in both terms of strength, pain tolerance, and stamina.

Other:

• Spicy food, Thai food, Japanese, and Chinese-American foods are among her very favorites to eat. Picked up learning a few small words in Chinese alongside it from some of the local eateries to boot. She even knows how to use chopsticks after years of being self-taught and being given pointers here and there at the places she’s been to eat.
• Height = 5’10”/177.8cm
• Does not know how to pick a lock to save her life.
• Owns a simple but beautiful snowflake pendant she often wears. A gift from someone Glacier in the past, perhaps?

...

...

…

…

…

---

---

---

---

Name: Alman Kastrati

Alias: Astromancer

Nicknames: Alms

Age: 17

Gender: A boi

Personality: Alman has a generally pleasant demeanor, and seems to be "chill" most of the time. He is noted to be highly enamored by ‘cute, fluffy animals’, and possesses a keen sense of intuition of trustworthiness. Alman is pretty protective of those folks he happens to like, though those that he had a bad experience of could expect to be suddenly abandoned in the middle of a fight.

Aside from that, Alman is incredibly petty. Ruin his day, or his property? He’ll do the same, but he’ll try to make it a bit worse for whoever pissed on his parade. He is pretty much the embodiment of karma in this regard; actions will come back around, so better be nice to the guy, or else you’ll find yourself randomly inconvenienced by small, but infuriating things. Rule of thumb with Alman, then, is that he always returns to sender.

Appearance:

Biography: Alman wasn’t from Redline originally. Nor was he originally a citizen of the United States, either. His earliest memories, at least as far as he is willing to admit, traces back to their apartment in the city of Pristina, Kosovo, as the firstborn son of Selim and Jelena Kastrati.

Either way, Alman doesn’t remember all too much of his home country, as his family left it when he was five years old due to the highly volatile situation that it was in. They first arrived in New York City, and then moved up further north into Maine, where they finally settled down, somewhat. Now, they faced a whole new world.

As a child, he had the dream of becoming an astronaut, and reaching out towards the stars. Every night, he would look through the telescope, thinking of impossible dreams as typical for someone of such a young age. He knew every famous star and constellation, recognizing them as they shone in the night sky. Alman had quite a few difficulties with the English language, and was as such bullied for it in school, though that was simply the first reason. Other causes arose, namely because of his lack of aptitude for sports, and other generic reasons. He was passive though, and simply took it without telling anyone else, as he knew he couldn't fight back against the likes of them. Not like this. He would just get beaten even more. To make matters worse, his mother had been feeling unwell a lot of the time, but she always said that it was just her getting tired at work, which just made Alman worry to the point of being nearly physically sick. It seemed that the sorry state of everything was going to stay that way for a very long time.

One day, however, everything changed. Alman' mother had fallen ill. All those headaches weren’t just from the stress of work; it was a brain tumour. Alas, they didn't have the money to pay for the medication/medical bills to aid with her situation. She was, in all respects, dying.

In desperation, Alman’ father and uncle went to a dangerous, but deceptively friendly connection. They did not know what price they might pay in the process of getting the funds they required, but surely any sacrifice was worth it, if only her life was saved? By this point, Alman’ mother’s cancer was close to getting to a terminal stage, and there was little time left before it would begin to be difficult to dislodge.

That connection that they went to, it turned out, was a group for organized crime, who had them meet outside at night, where the Milky Way itself was visible in the sky. They were apparently willing to provide the money that the Kastratis needed, if only they would do something in return. That something, however, was heinous in its nature. Murderous, even. The boss wanted someone dead, and the assassination was their price. Alman father and uncle balked at this. They had expected something that would involve them and themselves alone, but it now seemed that this would be a life for a life. Now that they know who was the target, though, they cannot leave. Not until they say yes to the deal.

And so, the gangsters took hold of Alman’ father and uncle, and began to beat them to submission. The crime lord made him watch, forcibly keeping his eyes open even as he tried to look away. Here, he felt rage, and chaos. Rage at his father for believing that it was a good idea to plead the mafia for aid. Rage at the mafia for what they were now doing, and what they would make them do in exchange for a promise they may never carry out. He managed to close his eyes shut, if only for a moment, and heard only the chaos from his surroundings; the laughing of vicious thugs, the cries of pain, the sounds of blunt implements impacting against flesh. Rage. Disorder. They were all his to bear.

At that moment, an entity that skirted in the dimensions far above the ken of mortal perceptions found a suitable vessel. A shard unraveled, and in a split second, Alman was enlightened. He could now create the shiniest of lights, the fiercest of flames, the purest manifestation of starfire. And so, instead of his family being the victims that night, the gangsters were annihilated. Orbs of starlight burst into existence, setting clothing and flesh alight. The chaotic constellation that ensued wiped out the gangsters, purging them from the face of the earth. The gang were all dead, and the Kastrati clan still lived. The money, which had been in a suitcase as a fleeting proof of the deal they could have made, was now theirs for the taking. His mother will live, but at what cost?

Later in the morning, as the Kastratis recovered and spoke to one another about the events of last night, PRT investigations found traces of ionized gas within the area of concern, as well as charred bodies belonging to some of the most notorious gangsters in the state. Investigations pinpointed just who these gangsters were supposed to meet at the night, which led them to this moment. Self defense was cited as defensible cause for such wanton destruction, but such an ability was still extremely dangerous for public life.

The PRT caught wind, and showed up in the Kastrati doorstep, having found that he had obliterated around two dozen or so 'people'. It was clear that Alman cannot remain in regular society like this. His parents were somewhat resistant to the idea that their only child is to go away from them, but they relented after about a week as the ultimatum became heavier. In exchange for around the clock protection for them, Alman was to enter the Wards Program.

Powers:
Classification: Blaster 6
Astromancy: Alman produces and channels plasma energy. He is as such able to create and maintain up to four miniature stars at a given time, with three distinct modes that operate in a sliding scale of heat and light. They can move at around 7 to 8 meters per second, with any turns requiring pauses in movement.

Mode 1 (Searing Star): Capable of melting through most metals, as well as turning sand into glass at physical contact. By far the dimmest, but the most potent in terms of destructive potential. These can immolate most materials that they may come across.

Mode 2 (Blinding Star): Little to no destructive capability, but the brightness emanating when it is created acts as a powerful flashbang, temporarily disorienting and blinding those who had not protected their eyes.

Mode 3 (Main Sequence): Seemingly unremarkable, these main sequence stars, as he calls them, are able to sear wood and stone, and can be difficult to look at for prolonged periods. This is the foundation from which the other two derive from in their creation.
Skills: When he was still unpowered, Alman was noted to be a great painter.
Other: No girlfriend since birth, sadly.