Name: Katherine "Kate" Staples Appearance: Kate stands at a short 5 foot 3 and has a skinny physique. Her hair is a dark natural black and is kept short and very slightly unkempt, a stark contrast to her thin and fine eyebrows that lay just above her large dark brown eyes. Her skin is slightly pale, although she's adamant that it's "just genetics" if people mention it. Age: 17 Sex: Female Infection type: Empowered Powers: Superhuman Speed Electricity Absorption and Redistribution Personality: Kate is an apt and cunning young girl, able to use her environment to her advantage and think quickly on the spot. However, this has lead her into a few sticky situations as it has made her rather headstrong and arrogant to some extent. She can often come off as rather mean-spirited or rude to people on first meeting, but in truth she is just rather defensive and insecure, and uses this side of her personality as an output to make herself seem more confident. On the inside she is rather kind and is very loyal and defensive of her friends. Bio: Kate was born to a salary man father and a housewife mother. His father, a former convict had a great deal of impact upon Kate's life, but not in the way you'd expect a father to. He was a former convict, who was released when Kate was around 6. He was generally good for about a year, but thinks took a major turn for the worst when his old prison friends began to seep back into his life. He began to get more violent, and began abusing Kate's mother. She did her best to hide it from Kate, but things somehow got even more worse when her father began attempting to beat Kate herself. Her mother tried to stop this as best she could, but he was too strong and little Kate was left to fend for herself.
Eventually the abuse got too bad to handle, and Kate was sent to live with her grandparents. After a series of childish and often cryptic explanations of the abuse, her grandparents finally got the message and reported her father to the police. This did not end will, it sent him into a major fit of rage that resulted in the murder of Kate's mother. However, he was subsequently arrested, every cloud has a silver lining, as they say. Kate began living with her grandparents after that, and since looked upon them more as parents than she ever did her actual parents.
Even though her grandparents were both exceptional people, with her grandfather being a military veteran, her grandmother being a doctor and both being immigrants to a country that did not fully accept them at the time. Despite their achievements, they weren't really all that well-off money wise. A lot of the money they had saved up went towards holidays and their family during their early years of retirement. They now lived in a rather poor area, and kept a humble life. Kate was brought up under respectable values, but with little to do with her time she couldn't help getting in trouble.
Her early teen years were filled with petty crimes, stealing and breaking into houses just for the fun of it and the like. Not very heroic, but peer pressure is one hell of a thing. It was around this time that she got both of her powers. Her super speed was a result of a thievery gone wrong. The owners of the money she stole had awoken, and needless to say they weren't the usual fat slobs that Kate stole from. They chased her damn near a mile, and were gaining fast. This was when her power kicked in. Without even realizing it she began rapidly increasing in speed, until she began moving quicker than the cars that used to speed by next to her. It was all due to the 'fever' she had became ill from a week previous. It was, in fact, the very fever that gave people powers.
Her second power came as a shock to say the least, although it also came in a much less exciting event. She was out drinking with a few of her friends after a party on her 16th birthday, and low and behold she got her jacket caught on a fence after climbing it. Since none of her friends would help the birthday girl get her jacket back, she was forced to climb back up the fence and get it. Unbeknownst to her, this was an electric fence that was hooked up to a rather jittery old generator that only supplied enough energy to power it in intervals. As she neared the top of the fence it shocked her for a moment, but that quickly subsided as the energy coursed through her body and was sent back out through her elbow of all places.
It was only after seeing news of superheroes and villains on the news that the thought occurred to her that she could do the same. She bought a few pieces of equipment off of amazon, and has been doing the whole hero business for a small while now. Equipment: -Tonfa -Phone -Few thousand dollars -Satchel -Extra pair of shoes
Renovation and Restoration - Alexander touches a broken machine or tool, or a wounded person, and, with time and energy, can repair/heal them by reverting their bodies to a previous state. However, the more severe the damage, the more time is needed to heal and repair it.
Durability and Softness - Alexander can harden or soften matter that he touches; he can turn his clothes hard enough to stop bullets, and knifes as soft as Styrofoam.
Revelation - Alexander can sense other people with powers and know what said powers are.
Personality: Alexander seeks to be the Hope in the Grim Darkness, but lacks the persistence to be truly that. Thus, he mostly counts on his raw power and apperance of strength to get people to see things his way, which is a flaw. He also tends to try to be too many things at the same time; fighter, healer, planner, and morale raiser, to the point where he fails to master one specialty due to dabbling in all.
But beneath it all, he's a kind person who genuinely tries to change, a kind person who sincerely tries to help others.
Bio: Alexander Sky was born with an ordinary life, as an ordinary kid, and he wanted to escape that. He wanted to be the light in a world that was troubled, to be a source of hope for a world that was suffering, and that led him to be a self-rightheous goody-two-shoes who skated by on raw talent, which did not always come through for him. He made many friends, both online and offline, but also lost some of them due to his self-righteousness and tendency to be full of himself.
Then came the infection; the Martian Virus had come to his hometown, and he lost more friends to the disease, before falling prey to the sickness himself. When he came to, he discovered something strange about himself, strange powers over matter and life that he never had before. He now had the ability to be the Hope for people that he always wanted to be...but it came at great cost.
For the trauma that caused his powers to manifest was survivors' guilt over his friends' deaths.
Equipment: Identical to Kyle's; Clothes, backpack, a few thousand dollars (20+ years of inflation), Cell phone.
There is also a laptop and two pistols (he just got his firearms license).
Revelation - Mab can detect who has powers, and how said powers work.
Detection - Can detect whenever people lie to her.
Compulsion - Can use direct and close eye contact to mind-control a person or group of people once in their lifetimes; basically, she can command a person to do something, anything at all, but they will only do so once; never again. Not merely that, but anyone with the power to tell what supernatural abilities a person has, is immune from this ability (right now, it's her and Alex, but others with sensory powers are also immune).* Also, this ability can be contested by superior Willpower (aka if you're a PC, you're immune...for now).
Personality: Mab Javert is a person who believes that she stands for the interests of Humanity as a whole, a person filled with pride that she is 'standing up' for a cause greater than the petty struggles of people and ideologies. In order to keep this pride, she is willing to manipulate, cajole, and threaten in order to force people to follow her agenda, always believing it is for the greater good. But hidden behind this is an empty, hollow shell of a person who seeks meaning through devotion of a goal, someone who, once said goal is done, hasn't thought of what she would do after.
Bio: Mab Javert was born to wealthy Irish-French Parents in New York, as their one and only heir. Due to this, said parents desired to raise her as their 'perfect throphy wife', teaching her etiquette, dancing, and art, not realizing that there was a cold, steely intelligence behind their daugther. In response to this, Mab began to rebel in small ways as soon as she was old enough to, participating in political discussions at her private school, eventually winning a position at the Student Council. As she moved into university, her diverging political views got her into friction with her parents, although the fact that she was taking hawkish views that the rest of their social class agreed with gave her the approval of her other relatives, shielding her from her parents' wrath.
Eventually, she left home to join the CIA, where she slowly became one of their top agents. However, being in the CIA gave her a broader perspective on life beyond just the concerns of the US, and she began having fantasies of unifying Humanity as a whole. However, she dismissed that...until the Martian Plague arrived, and she became one of the first infectees. For days, she lay close to death in the CIA Hospital, and in her moments of conciousness, she craved something, something that she had been denied for a long time...power. She wanted to rule, she wanted to be a Queen, she wanted to unite Humanity because a strong will was needed to unite it!
As the sickness passed, leaving her cured, Mab discovered her new powers, and her access to Federal Research allowed her to discover the existence of the Aliens behind all this. Suddenly, she found a new purpose in life; she would become the Queen of Humanity, and take control of the world to defend it!
Equipment:
Federal Funds of 10 Billion Dollars Private Accounts (mostly embezzled) of 4 Billion Dollars An Arsenal of Various Guns and Other Weapons A Government Car Various Operatives under her command, some powered, some not.
Powers: Rapid healing (a few times faster than normal), Telekinesis (about 5 pounds), Resilience (Damage resistance and tire more slowly)
Personality: A fan of comics/anime, he is obsessed with heroics, and will generally do what he considers to be the most heroic.
Bio: A typical geeky teenage boy, he is raised by a single mom. When they returned from a Florida vacation shortly after his sixteenth century he started to get a fever. The next day, when he started to go downstairs, he suddenly grew dizzy at the top of the steps and fell down the staircase. He woke up in the hospital with a neck brace on. They had to restrain him until his next healed, or he risked serious spinal cord damage. He had to lay there for days unable to even go to the bathroom or bathe by himself. He hated it, and wanted to do things on his own. He got his wish when the TV remote slid into his hand. Now that he's recovered he feels like he needs to help others with his gift. That is, after all, the heroic thing to do.
Equipment: Clothes, backpack, a few thousand dollars (20+ years of inflation), Cell phone
Name: Derrin Sellars
Appearance:
Age: 18
Sex: Male
Infection type: Empowered
Powers: Super strength, Resilience (damage resistance, and tire more slowly), electrogenesis (electrifies his body)
Personality: A bit of a jerk, he tells you the truth as he sees it, without concern for how you'll react. He's dedicated to protecting people, but mostly his younger cousin Kyle.
Bio: Became infected after visited is cousin the day before a big Karate tournament. Despite the fact that he had a fever, he decided to fight anyway. The virus clouded his mind, making it difficult to react during the tournament, but for some reason no one's blows did little to no damage after the first few rounds. He was disqualified, however,when he broke a kid's ribs with a kick. He was certain he didn't kick them very hard, but the paramedic said otherwise. When he went to visit his cousin just after he got out of the hospital, his cousin showed him his telekinesis and he demonstrated his strength with an old set of weights. As he still had a slight fever, his cousin suggested that he try to get a "real" super power and started sparing with him. Due to his cousin's "carrier" status his cousin quickly developed an immunity to his blows. One day, angry that he couldn't get through his cousin's defenses, he hit him as hard as he could in anger and his cousin flew backwards, body jerking as he hit the ground. He had gained the ability to shock people by generating electricity. The next day his symptoms started going away, and he learned that he was now over it, not a carrier like his cousin. When his cousin decided to start dealing with the super-villains that were hurting people, he decided to team up with him to help out.
Equipment: five hundred dollars, Iphone 20 (first smartphone with a quantum chipset on the market), 2012 Prius, Karate gear
Name: 현민호 (Hyeon Min-ho), Vinicius "Vini" Zairy Montes
"Vin" and "Vini"
Appearance: Unreliable.
* Vini and Vin are the same person, simply the male and female appearance's that Vini defaults to when taking other forms. He still enjoys creating random appearances to take, these two are simply the ones he uses most often and views as his new natural look. The appearance he had before gaining his powers has been put out of his mind and he will likely never take his birth form again.
Vini is fairly tall and well built, with light skin and light orange eyes. He had dark hair and only shows a few signs of his half-Korean heritage, appearing almost 1/4th or less Korean instead of the half he truly is. Similarly there is almost no sign of his father's Latino blood. ~
Vin is a bit shorter than Vini, with pale skin and dark green eyes. She has soft, long dark hair and looks more dominantly Korean than Vini. She too shows little sign of her father's Latino heritage.
Age: Unreliable. Naturally and dominantly 17.
Sex: Unreliable. Naturally and dominantly male.
Infection Type: Empowered
Powers:
Organic Manipulation; Vin is able to understand how living things work and alter them at a basic level. So far he is only capable of manipulating his own human appearance and making slight changes to others'. While he can change his own gender, skin color, height, weight, and even health, he can only make skin deep changes or minute internal alterations to other Humans. His effect on plants is nothing, and his effect on animals is also only skin deep, if there is any effect at all.
In time he will gain a mastery of the ability and become capable of altering all living matter. He will never be able to create or destroy matter, however living things are delicate and easily killed. It would not take much to intentionally or accidentally snuff out a life or disable a being from the capability of survival. All living things require certain things to function and any mistake while altering a being could cause serious problems. The ability to understand how a living thing works offsets this downside somewhat, but a lack of focus or not having the energy needed to make the changes desired leaves no small risk. ~
Energy Manipulation; absorbing energy and changing it into different types is a useful gift. He uses it to create fire and electricity as well as a source of fuel for his body. The ability tires quickly however, and the amount of energy he can hold in his body is limited. He also does not have a very large range of control, needing physical contact to absorb energy and only able to manipulate the energy a short distance from his skin. Already this has resulted in burns and shocks around his hands.
Eventually his field of control will expand, allowing him to manipulate energy from a distance and store more within himself. His own body requires large amounts of energy to function, much more than another Human or even an empowered one, and as such a lot of the energy he absorbs is turned to keeping himself alive. He is also susceptible to damage by the energy he manipulates; burning and electrocution especially, but also radiation as well. Storing more energy than his body can hold will result in literally burning up his own body. ~
Psychic Field: Vini's mind emits a psychic field, allowing him to interact with other minds around him. Influencing actions, reading thoughts, and telepathic communication are a few of the capabilities. Already limits have been found in that it takes immense concentration to focus on any one mind, and so far only cats have answered his mental suggestions. The thoughts of animals are incomprehensible to him, and while he feels something from plants, they aren't at all categorizable as thoughts. Regardless of language, Human thoughts make sense to him.
As his power grows his field of control will expand and he will be able to more accurately read and influence minds at further distances with less need to concentrate. He will not be able to mind-control a sentient being or any creature with significant willpower.
Personality: Vini has long been frustrated with his life, holding himself to high standards he had no way of reaching and finding the world baring sharp teeth at every turn. He wanted the world to be good to him, but it wouldn't even settle on fair, instead he found life and people to be cruel, and so he started fighting back. Some of his former gentler attributes remain, such as the urge to offer kindness and friendship to any and all, but they are buried beneath a heart of acid. He approaches others with caution and prepares for the worst from their interactions. He doesn't allow anything they say to hurt him, because he knows he is carved from marble; solid as stone and better than any of the pebbles fighting at his feet.
Bio: Vini's mother was a Korean woman who loved to travel. She met his father in Sao Paulo, Brazil and the two traveled for a few years, in Frankfurt, Germany they discovered she was pregnant. She was adamant she wasn't done seeing the world and refused to settle down. On a small trip to Chile after returning home to meet his family, Vini was born. A year later they moved from Chile to America, and the year following that his mother and her unborn daughter died in childbirth. By that time they were living in LA and were barely able to make ends meet, having spent too much of their money traveling and his father never finished his education. However his father refused to move to a less costly city, claiming LA was his mother's favourite place. Three years later they moved from California to a small town in Oregon.
Vini had two names, using his Korean one at home with his father, who was confusingly Brazilian and thus spoke Portuguese, but had learned some Korean from his now deceased wife, and his more European name at school with his friends. He had many friends at first, carrying a sense of loneliness with him at how empty and quiet his home was, and he was desperate to have as many companions as possible. He found the other children to be cruel though, and many of his friends bullied his other friends, or said horrible things about each other. Vini often refused to get caught up in the feuds though, which alienated both sides. Near the end of his stay in Oregon he only had a handful of friends of a like mind who disliked getting involved.
He left them behind when he and his father moved across the country to live in North Carolina, for seemingly no reason. If there ever was a reason, Vini never discovered it. Once more he started making friends with as many people as would have him, but as he discovered they too were cruel and hateful towards each other, Vini stuck to his teammates on the swim team instead. They could usually be counted on to place nice with everyone, but even they had their spats with this and that student. Vini found himself ignoring their flaws just so he could justify them to his too-high standards and maintain their friendship.
Just before he gained his powers, Vini found himself in a situation he couldn't ignore. He'd gotten a girlfriend the year before, but things had ended abruptly when she moved to Virginia. There were occasional other girls who caught his eye, but just as frequently there were boys. When one came to him with an offer of a date, he hesitantly accepted, already knowing that if it got out it wouldn't be pretty. Of course, it immediately got out because the boy who asked him out had done it as a joke and immediately began telling others. The swim team, his only collection of real friends, did not approve.
Their actions hardened his heart, and he finally accepted that the world and everyone in it were flawed. Everyone except himself, because he had tried to be friendly, to be kind, to have an open mind and be respectful and a thousand other good things to so many bad people, but even the nicest of those people were bad and hateful. None of them were good enough to be his friend, they were unworthy of his kindness. So despite how wrong it felt to mirror their cruelty, Vini did so anyway, becoming the exact kind of person he once hated.
At the first sign of fever, he leapt at the chance to disappear for a few days. He went home and locked himself away in his room. The sicker he got, the more frustrated he became with his situation. He'd seen those people so full of hate be nice to others, they didn't hate everyone, so what was different that made those people so likeable?
The answer was obvious; they were attractive, they were fit and healthy, they could match any style and look good in any clothes. He needed that.
Gaining an ability like the first one he received was undoubtedly unlikely, certainly under the circumstances of just wanting it, but the virus works in strange ways, and he was still emotionally fragile from the betrayal of his friends and the inevitable crumbling of the relationship with his father. He needed to be somebody else, and he needed to be healthy and attractive to have a chance at ever getting to the place he'd always wanted to be. The stress was just enough to work for him.
Of course once his body started changing, becomingly nearly unrecognizable to even himself, he knew that he'd regret getting what he'd wished for. His father would never recognize him, no one would- so he was immensely relieved when his appearance returned to normal moments later. He wrestled with the gift for a while, learning how it worked, but then he collapsed.
He still looked like himself luckily, his skin was simply clearer, a few shades paler, and his eyes a lighter shade of brown. His father found him soon after, investigating the sound of hearing his body hit the bathroom floor. He was rushed to the hospital, his fever through the roof and his pulse thready. They found he was dehydrated and utterly exhausted, in the few moments of wakefulness he had in the hospital he realized he didn't even have the energy to breath.
This his second power came to him, as a direct response of being overtaxed by his first power. He began absorbing energy directly from the machines keeping him alive, and from the air around him. Gradually he began to recover, absorbing more and more energy to sate himself. The hospital had several power problems in the following days, and three days after arriving his fever still hadn't gone down and he only had short bouts of wakefulness. During one of those bouts he asked the nurse where his father was and she explained to him one of the kids from school had passed his room and mocked his preferences. His father left the hospital after overhearing and interrogating the kid.
Vini knew his father well, so he was well aware of how angry his father would be at learning something like this about his only son. When the man returned, he refused to talk to him for a long time, so long Vini was left desperately wondering what the man was thinking and beginning to seriously consider exactly what his father might do when they were alone. Then his third and final power made an appearance, and Vini saw exactly what his father was thinking.
That night he fled the hospital looking like someone else. Two days later his fever ended and he felt mostly normal. He'd been on the move ever since, heading north to Canada.
Equipment: Stolen clothes, stolen bag, handful of stolen cash.
