K A I D E N N E W M A N ◼ J A N U A R Y 8 ( 1 9 ) ◼ M A L E
"Hullo! I'm hoping we can all be good friends here. And no, I don't bite."
▼ A P P E A R A N C E:
"I'm terribly sorry if my appearance frightens you...Can't really fix that, though."
//STATS:◼ HEIGHT | 6'6"◼ WEIGHT | 230 lbs.◼ BUILD | Built (for a moth guy...?)◼ HAIR COLOUR | Brown - Now White◼ EYE COLOUR | Green - Now Red◼ 'VOICE' TEXT COLOUR | Blue Magenta (8882be)◼ OTHER | Body is covered in chitinous scales, alongside a thin layer of strange, powdery dust, with what lies below being a dense exoskeleton. Wings are also composed of chitin, though specially altered for proper functioning. Unlike most moths, he has a proper mouth, though it also rather disturbingly has an extendable proboscis. //DESCRIPTION:Kaiden has the unfortunate 'gift' of looking like a moth monster from an 80s horror flick. His whole appearance is unnatural, to put it nicely, between his compound eyes (of which some are present even on his chitinous shoulders, disturbingly enough), multiple arms with razor-sharp claws, spindly little feet, and the odd proportions of his body that are only able to be supported through the complex and dense system of chitinous scales and plates that cover his form, and he makes for someone nobody is ever prepared to meet for the first time.
Also, yes, his floof is rather warm and nice to touch. But don't touch without permission; that's rude.▼ B I O G R A P H Y:
"It has been a rough couple of days. But I'm sure I can put this all behind me! Eventually..."
Kaiden was born in a place where everyone knew his name; specifically Coldfoot, Alaska, a town with not even 50 people to its name. Practically 'nowhere' by any other name. But it was home. His father, Nathaniel Newman, was an Ethologist all the way from California who had made his way up North to pursue his craft, studying the natural behavior of the myriad of wildlife present in the small town's nearby National Park and Wildlife Refuge. As such, as a boy, young Kaiden spent many, many days alongside his old man in the beautiful snowy wilderness of Alaska (with professional guides, of course).
Growing up, while he found his father's work inspiring, Kaiden didn't seek to directly follow in his footsteps. He found a more creative soul within himself; a desire to write, to inscribe all the wonders of nature he'd come across for all to be able to witness through text. In other words, he wished to become a writer, and seemed quite well on his way, given how exemplary he performed in school (which, granted, he and his dad had to drive miles and miles each day to even get to). After graduating, Kaiden had plans to go abroad to Harvard to further his education before he became an author, but the world had different plans; his father fell ill shortly after he graduated, and he wasn't willing to part while knowing they were unwell.
...That's how he got stuck in his hometown for almost two years.
Thankfully, he didn't spend it twiddling his thumbs; he'd picked up a job working at the local library as an aide. It wasn't great-paying work, but it had a pleasant atmosphere for the bookish young man, so he hardly complained. However, something rather strange happened recently...It had been a late shift for him, wanting to make a little overtime pay to treat some of his high school friends to a nice dinner, as some of them were finally going to leave Coldfoot behind, just as he had planned. It had been a weirdly busy day though, and it didn't help when those selfsame friends dropped in unannounced to goof about during his work hours; in other words, he was drained. Just a little shut-eye wouldn't hurt...
Kaiden felt shifts. Something...Cracking? Splitting open, almost. He felt twinges across his whole body, but it felt numb, as if it wasn't even his own body anymore. For some reason, all of that didn't shake him out of his stupor. But the shrill scream of a young lady certainly did. His eyes flashed open, but immediately, something was very wrong. He was seeing too much - as silly as that sounds - and it all looked so...Different. Like fractals of everything around him. He shook it off though, as he was more worried about who was giving off that awful noise. Turned out, it was Marilyn, one of his friends. Seemed like she'd tried to pop back in late in his shift, though for what reasons, he couldn't say. Kaiden held his head in his hand; her yell gave him a splitting - wait. His hand...The fingers were wrong. He was missing two, and the look of them- suddenly, with his jarring sense of vision, he began to grasp more of himself. He was taller, bigger, and heaver than he had ever been before. He stood a full head and-a-half over Marilyn, for Chrissake! And there was all this weird white fur over his body, covering up so much of his arms and le-...
What on EARTH were his legs?! Like off-kilter sticks, yet they somehow miraculously supported his new mass. Then he felt them flitter, and eyes in places he didn't know he could have eyes looked behind him; his wings. His...Wings? It was all so overwhelming; the new sights, the new senses, the new body, all of it was far too much. Kaiden recoiled at the sight of himself, accidentally launching back into a bookshelf with a grunt as it fell on top of him. If he was human, he probably could have died. But...
With arms he didn't realize he now possessed, he pushed up with inhuman strength, and accidentally launched the bookshelf through the roof. Literally. Now that was already jarring enough, but what came next boggled him even more. Looking up in that fresh hole, with Marilyn's screams fading into mere background noise, he saw them; twinkling stars held bright against the night of Alaska. And something in him desperately wanted to reach that incandescent light...And so it did.
He flew. Higher, higher, and higher still. In a way, it was liberating; to forget everything else and just reach to the stars, though far more literally than he could ever imagine. Even then, though some human part of his brain kicked in, trying to tell him that this way wrong. Thankfully, it reached him, because by the time he snapped back to reality, he was hundreds of feet up into the air. It was a panicked descent, certainly, and a rough one, but he made it back to ground level, plopping into the deep snow.
The rest, as they say, is history.
News travels fast in a town so self-contained, and it didn't take long for Nathaniel to catch word of what happened (well, that being that either his son became a giant moth man, or was eaten by one; he was hoping for the former). While he wasn't back to perfect health, he had been on the up-and-up for some time, and he wouldn't take this lying down. His boy was in danger; either from himself, or from the people who would see him as a monster. So he made a call back home. To AEGIS. While his arrival was delayed tremendously due to his unique situation, being so completely inhuman in comparison to many other Metas, he was lined up to join his fellow Metahumans in the Ju-V program inside the newly refurbished and repurposed Alcatraz Island all the way in California.
...Well, at least it would be a new experience?▼ M O T I V A T I O N / O B J E C T I V E:
"I want the chance to be who I am still, underneath all the...Scales and fluff."
Kaiden wants nothing more than to put all of this behind him (in no small part due to how absolutely terrifying his first day being this freak of nature turned out to be). If it means he has to be a model citizen for a few months or years, he's more than happy to do so. He already considers himself a bit of an orderly; but that comes from his past life, one that came without major conflicts or threats. He's woefully unprepared for the place he will have to set foot in, and one can only hope he comes out the other side unscathed.
▼ A B I L I T I E S / S K I L L S:
"Well, I can fly, I'm strong and durable, I can smell things miles away...Why, I sound like Superman!...If he were a bug."
//ABILITIES:◼ Superhuman Physiology | Kaiden has the proportionate strength of the Atlas Moth, capable of lifting up to 10 times his own body weight; nearly 20 times if he strains himself severely, effectively equaling out to 1-2 tons of lifting strength. His chitinous exterior makes him very bulky as well, able to deflect knives, firearms, and even avoid severe damage from more extreme options, like explosives. Additionally, his body seems to possess shockingly few vital organs, effectively only needing his heart and brain to survive, making him deceptively tenacious.
◼ Compound Eyes/Superhuman Smell | Kaiden possesses a multitude of compound eyes; two on his head, and two smaller sets on each of his shoulders. Not only do these grant him extremely heightened sight but they can even see ultraviolet rays, which are normally invisible to the human eye. Additionally, due to just how many he has, Kaiden possesses a great scope of vision around his general person at all times. Kaiden also smells and feels through his large antennae and small microscopic hairs that cover his hands and feet. However, his sense of smell is the far greater one, able to not only smell over a massive 70 mile radius, but able to pinpoint even precise smells within that field, given enough time and focus.
◼ Flight | Kaiden can fly. Shocker, I know - and I don't even entirely mean that in a sarcastic sense. Given his weight, it's downright insane, but you can thank the hyper evolved scaled wings he's packing more than anything else. While he's not exactly a sonic jet, he can fly at moderate paces for extraordinarily long times, and his body and antennae are able to intuitively sense and adjust to shifts in altitude and flight conditions. Thanks to his strength, he's even able to carry a few people, though it'd hinder his speed tremendously.
◼ Sound Muffling | An advanced version of a survival ability some moths have developed, Kaiden can make most movements without generating even a peep (though thankfully this doesn't apply to his voice), thanks in part to the thin layer of dust that coats his body at all times. This makes him unnaturally stealthy in spite of his stature, and it also means anything attempting to detect him thought sonar will ultimately fail. It also softens damage he could take from high-intensity sound waves or the like. His fluff in particular makes for an exceptional sound dampener.
◼ Low-Temp Resistance | In stark contrast to normal moths (perhaps due to his current living conditions when he underwent his changes), Kaiden is extremely tolerant of low temperatures, especially in the sections of his body where his fur is most dense, such as around his head, arms, and legs.
◼ ??? | Due to the current understandings of Kaiden's abilities, it is believed he may possess more specialized features from other subspecies of moths, but has yet to show these features off. Potential for other abilities include; camouflage, underwater breathing, silk generation, and more possibilities pending; worth further study.
//SKILLS:◼ Well-Learned | While Kaiden's focus was mostly on literature and writing, he was generally a well-rounded student in his time in school, and his GPA definitely had him pointed towards bright things in his future. Simply put, a smart cookie (but no brainiac, of course).
◼ Outdoorsy | Not something you would expect from someone who so clearly fits the label of 'bookworm' (which is even MORE insulting now than ever before), Kaiden is very well-versed in outdoor exploration and survival skills due to his years of time alongside his father studying the wilderness.
//LIMITATIONS:◼ Overstimulation | Due to both how new his abilities are and the heights of his new senses, Kaiden is extremely vulnerable to overstimulation, particularly smell. You bring something with too strong a scent near him, and he could end up gagging on it for minutes straight. While sight and sound are not an issue typically, his wings, being his way of detecting sound (yeah, bugs can be fuckin' weird), are quite sensitive to loud noises, and if he views the world in visible light over UV, anything particularly bright, beyond being...Well, still rather bright and hard to stare at, unerringly attracts him towards it. The brighter, the more attractive. He can fight the impulse, but it isn't easy.
◼ Insect | Due to his new insectoid form, Kaiden has two particular vulnerabilities; one is pesticides, which can severely irritate and debilitate him for hours at a time with enough dosage. The other is fire; due to the initial layer of dust scales covering his body, he can be extremely flammable. Which is obviously extremely unpleasant.
◼ Alcohol...? | Yep, we're serious. An embarrassing new side effect of being a moth is that he is invariably attracted to alcohol of all sorts, and worst of all, absolutely cannot hold his liquor. If he can scent out a bottle of the stuff (wine and sweetened beer proving particularly effective), he can't stop himself until he finds it and gets a taste, and by the time he's gotten that far, he'll be wasted and twitching out on the floor in seconds flat. He really,
really hates his power.
//WEAKNESSES:
◼ Inexperienced | Just like any other new Metahuman, he's had a steep learning curve; but perhaps worse than most, what with the bevvy of new senses and sights he's had to try and comprehend, on top of his massively warped physiology.
◼ Naive | He'd hardly consider it a 'weakness', but Kaiden likes to think the best of people and situations. A permanent optimist. In other words, when someone plays their cards right, they could get whatever they want out of the poor guy and he'd likely be none the wiser. Though, in this environment, such a weakness will hardly stick around for long if he wants to live any kind of life...
▼ N O T E S:
//SUPPORTING CAST:
▼ ALLIES
◼ Immediate Family | Kaiden loves his parents more than the whole world, and the feeling's always been mutual. Granted...He never got a real chance to talk to them after everything happened. He hopes they won't think any differently of him...
▼ FRIENDS
◼ 'City' Of Coldfoot | In a place so small, everyone's either a close friend or a bitter enemy, and Kaiden liked making lots of friends. Granted, he didn't exactly see anyone standing up for him after he changed...
▼ ENEMIES
◼ TBD | Test
//STOMPING GROUNDS
◼ USA | Coldfoot, Alaska//PARAPHERNALIA
◼ TBD | Test
