Louisa Reynolds || 19 years old || New York City, USA || Runaway || Mutant
"They’re not pests! …They’re family. The only ones I have left."
The Piper has the mutant ability to psychically command rodents. She can control everything from the common sewer rat to mice, capybaras, chinchillas, and more. However, she tends to be most fond of rats and avoids working with squirrels (to avoid stepping on the schtick of Squirrel Girl). When commanding rodents, she can work on a minute level and make single rodents execute complex tasks or can command entire hordes, albeit with somewhat less accuracy. She uses these abilities to collect information, steal items sneakily, or overwhelm foes in combat with bites and scratches.
She can telepathically communicate with hordes of rodents within a certain range, scrying through their senses, or reading their emotional states. When rodents are under her influence, she can sometimes heighten their intelligence so that they can accomplish more complicated tasks outside of her range.
Working with “vermin” so often, she also has a secondary set of abilities: poison and disease resistance. While Piper can still get sick, it is very rare. Her immune system is incredibly resilient, and accustomed to the rot and sickness that is so prevalent in sewer systems or dumpsters.
While not necessarily combat-trained, she is skilled at stealth and acrobatics, able to leap away into the shadows when danger arises.
Louisa Rodney was born a mutant with the strange ability to command rodents, something her parents discovered about her when they’d often find young Louisa in her crib cuddling with a swarm of rats. After several rodent extermination attempts, Louisa would still always end up with a rat or two secretly sticking around, and soon her parents came to simply ignore this unusual affinity, as long as Louisa kept it under wraps.
She was always a social outcast, a bit too awkward to fit in with popular kids, and a bit too offbeat to even hang out with the nerds, so growing up Louisa turned to her rats. She’d spend much time in the alleys or sewers of New York, practicing her abilities and playing with rats, growing quite fond of them. They would tell her very interesting stories about the city and its secrets. Although they couldn’t talk per se, she could read their recent memories and see what they saw. While her parents began to grow distant, caring more for her “normal” human siblings, Louisa grew reclusive, but stayed under the radar, not attracting too much attention.
However, a supervillain attack on her high school led to Louisa having a mental breakdown, and she uncontrollably unleashed a flood of thousands of rats, bringing the villain down but traumatizing everyone in the vicinity.
After this event, she ran away from home, harassed by anti-mutant advocates and various agencies looking to control or utilize her abilities. She turned to the place that always felt like home… the sewers, the alleys, and life among the rats. To get by, she would often command her rats to steal clothes, food, or other basic needs. However, she would begin to get more extravagant, planning heists to steal electronics, furniture, and valuable goods to deck out her sewer lair. She relied on her rats and indulged in greed to numb the pain of isolation.
As much as she wanted to be left alone, Louisa gained the attention of mutants and other parties interested in the information she can collect with her rats. At first, she avoided such people looking for her, but they soon offered her protection, money, and goods. Hesitantly, she’s begun taking on jobs from the underworld to stalk targets or steal things here or there. She would work with the Morlock mutants from time to time, and various criminals. She didn’t want to be bad… but she had to do what she had to survive. That’s what she told herself.
However, in a chance sighting, she and her rats witnessed a murder, some sort of well-dressed, affluent man killing an innocent woman.
Louisa had done and seen terrible things, but this was worse. The murderer somehow realized that the Piper had seen what he had done, and he killed the rat watching him and Louisa fled. Currently, Louisa has begun to find arrays of dead rats throughout her sewers, and has become much more paranoid. These aren’t normal deaths, but precise killings, poor creatures brutally eviscerated to scare her.
She saw something she wasn’t supposed to see, and now she’s being hunted.
Eyes in Every Corner: Louisa has bartered her reconnaissance abilities to those who are willing to seek out The Piper and pay. However, her widespread perception via rat agents has also allowed her to witness things she shouldn’t have. Criminal dealings, supervillain plans, and most recently, a murder. And it seems this murderer wants to make sure no witnesses are left alive.
Rodent Stowaway: Louisa has heard of Krakoa, and part of her yearns to be among other mutants. However, she is deeply afraid of leaving behind her home in the sewers among New York’s rodents. Part of the journey in this roleplay will be reckoning with her mutant side and deciding if she wants to leave her home and stow away to Krakoa.
