Science has brought us many great inventions: organ transplants, solar power, air conditioning. But every once in a while, science veers off the road of human interest and does something...unsavory. The Holocaust experiments, the Totskoye nuclear exercise, The Guatemala syphilis experiment, all experiments by humans, on humans. Some could argue that such cruelties are the reason we have the modern medicine that we have, that there may be a silver lining in the horrors of our past. But the subjects of those experiments would probably beg to differ.
Enter the heroes of our story. Created in test tubes and locked away, could one really say they are human? Part man, part animal, these kids were never give a chance at a normal life. The facility that created them goes by Chimera. It's a very well hidden, private company that may or may not be partially government funded. They were trying to create super soldiers, using the DNA of different animals to create humans with different abilities. Many of these experiments resulted in the subjects' death, but one batch seemed to have succeeded: Project Daedalus, the winged children.
These kids, like many before them, were born and raised at the facility, never knowing an outside world. Some of them featured DNA from other species, but all of them were part avian. Their wings, the pride of the scientist's who created them, gifted them with flight. As they grew, they were taught basic education: Math, reading, science. They were also trained for their eventual purpose: super soldiers. These kids were faster and stronger than a typical human being. Their bones, super light, were harder, their muscles where more efficient, and their lungs were more powerful. Once full grown, they would win any fight with a regular man.
However, as they grew into their teen years, they became harder to control. They longed for freedom. Knowing that they were eventually going to be used as weapons, they were determined to escape their fate. And, one stormy night, they got that chance. The mutants fled into the wilderness that surrounded the base, staying together as a flock. With only each other to rely on, they must now survive a world that they've never seen before: Modern Society.
1: The "Flock" as they call themselves, will consist of six or so kids, ages 12 to 19.
2: All of the kids will have bird DNA. One other animal can be mixed in, if you so desire.
3: This is all based on the Maximum Ride book series, more specifically, the first two books. In the traditional style of Max Ride, the kids will have to avoid being caught by mutants who are loyal to Chimera, the batch of Project Manticore. These experiments consist of human canine and human feline mutants who have all been brainwashed into being the loyal lapdogs of Chimera. They have been sent out in droves to find and return the bird kids. Playing one of these guys is totally an option.
Character form:
Name: (Feel free to give them off color names. They pretty much named themselves) Age: Gender: DNA:
Personality: Mal, in an interesting twist, didn't entirely name herself. In fact, she based her name off of what the scientists at Chimera used to call her; malcontent, malicious, maladjusted. This speaks to her personality pretty strongly. She's...well, you could call her prickly. She's not one for staying quiet and not speaking her mind, and she makes it very clear to everyone exactly what she thinks of them. For the Flock especially. For them, it's her own little way of showing that she cares deeply about them, and wants them to be all that they can. For everyone else? That's how she takes out her anger. Or, well, tries to. It doesn't always work, and that has resulted in her being...pretty violent if someone sets her off. She's the principal hair-trigger of the group, always ready to go off on anybody that might get in her way, or her family's. And she does consider the Flock her family. She cares for them immensely, and despite not being the eldest, is very much protective of everyone in it, younger and older alike. Just, well, that protection can manifest as "stop being such a baby and deal with it" a good majority of the time.
Appearance: Mal is on the shorter side for someone in the Flock. That being said, 'on the shorter side for someone in the Flock' still means she cracks six feet, ending up just a fraction of an inch under 6'1". Her skin is fair and spattered with freckles, and she sports a pair of stormy gray eyes framed by blonde hair that falls a little ways past her shoulders. She refuses to tie it up, insisting that it be hanging free at all times. Her height conspires with her light build (and massive caloric intake) to make her extremely slender. She's very flexible. As a general rule, she wears a white hoodie (though whether or not it's white anymore is debatable, since it doesn't get washed as often as it should) and tough denim jeans, as well as a pair of beaten-up boots shoplifted from a military surplus store when nobody was looking.
She bears a pair of huge gunmetal-gray wings. True to the nature of the frigatebird, her wings are enormous compared to her body, easily stretching over eighteen feet from tip to tip. Due to this, she's a master at gliding. She can go for miles upon miles without so much as a few flaps. Thus, once she's in the air—as long as there's no hurry—she can fly for a very long time. You'll notice I mentioned 'in a hurry.' That's because these wings, while fantastic for gliding, are fairly cumbersome to actually flap. She's quite a slow midair sprinter, and she needs a good long time to get into the air, relative to others; she definitely can't snap up there quick. Once she's up, though, she's not coming down.
Other: It's worth mentioning that though she's never been to the ocean, she desperately wants to.
History: Mal was always a fighter. Back in Chimera, when she was taken for experiments, her poor, twig-thin undernourished self would fight tooth and nail to get away from the scientists, even breaking her own less-developed hollow bones on a few occasions. Because of his characteristic, despite looking quite a bit older than she really was, she was never sent off like Flick was; it was deemed too risky. She was insubordinate, and that made her dangerous. Makes her dangerous. On the whole, she hasn't changed much.
Name: Rook Age: 17 Gender: Male DNA: Common raven (Corvus corax)
Personality: He comes off as somewhat socially awkward. He tends to talk to himself unknowingly, and has some trouble starting conversations with others. His speech pattern is off, and he has a tendency to repeat himself. Above all, he is a mostly rational and logic-based person, who sometimes has trouble expressing his feelings. He's a hard person to get to know, but you can tell he appreciates you none the less.
Appearance: He's tall, standing at 6'2", and extremely thin. His hair is a very short brown, almost a buzzcut, and his eyes are a pale blue. His skin is extremely pale, due to lack of sunlight. His wings are that of a raven, and are a solid black, contrasting his skin tone rather distinctly. He is usually seen wearing a light grey t-shirt, and similarly colored sweatpants, along with a pair of dark grey sneakers.
Other: He has a habit of fidgeting, and has trouble staying still. He suffers from mild claustrophobia.
History: Compared to his peers, he scored lower in physical trials, and it was believed that he would probably make a poor soldier. However, he scored highly in all his academic classes, always getting perfect grades. The scientists quickly realized that he had a great intellect, believed to be a result of his raven DNA (After all, ravens are exceptionally intelligent birds). Starting at the age of 13, he was slowly participating in less physical activities and more mentally challenging ones. At the same time, his contact with the other experiments was limited, to the point where he spent most of his time in a box, listening to a voice give him increasingly advanced problems to solve, in order to test his intellect. This had a crippling impact on his social skills, and he grew to hate the confinement and isolation. When the escape happened, he was more than happy to be free of the cage which had become his home.
Name: Crash Age: 18 Gender: Male DNA: Red Tailed Hawk
Personality: Crash is incredibly stubborn; for years, he even managed to convince himself that living in a cage his whole life was his purpose. It’s not easy to change his mind once he’s set on something, but if you can convince him it’s his own idea he can be manipulated. At his core, he’s a lighthearted guy, he likes to have a good time and make people laugh but years of living in a lab had almost driven that out of him, for Crash, since he’s escaped, he is slowly starting to rediscover the parts of himself that the scientists never saw as useful. Crash is very loyal, and now that he has a family, his flock, he is very protective of them. Although he can be very selfless he can also be very impulsive, everything in the outside world is knew to him and self-control isn’t something that comes naturally to him.
Appearance: Crash is 6’ with broad shoulders and well-muscled and athletic build, blond disheveled hair, blue eyes, and pale skin from a lifetime in captivity. His wings are just like that of the red tailed hawk, long and powerful with the dorsal aspect being mainly dark brown in color and the ventral aspect being mostly white with black streaks across the ends of the flight feathers.
Other: Crash is an excellent flier, fast and able to turn on a dime but as his name suggests he’s not always graceful with his landings. He’s exceptionally strong, endurance unrivaled by any normal man, his eye sight is fantastic, as is his hearing. He can also let out an ear piercing and disorienting screech, much like that of a hawk, but louder and more powerful with his larger lungs.
History: Experiment 72521D was raised within a laboratory, that facility was all he knew for the vast majority of his life. Learning how to fly was easier than learning to walk and he took to it quickly, but he never could quite stick his landing. He was never quite as graceful as the rest of his flock and he quickly earned the nickname Crash. He embraced his nickname, sometimes crashing into things or people to get a laugh for the others, their lives were so glum that anything to lighten the mood for the others seemed worth the punishments it earned him. His captors didn’t like that, they stopped showing his video training and eventually he gave up on trying to make things better. His short stint of goofing off earned him extra training, meant to keep him so physically exhausted that his will would break, allowing them to fill his mind with whatever they wanted. They managed to take the once goofy and lighthearted boy and almost completely turn him into the perfect soldier.
He trained hard, grew strong and fast. This was his purpose in life, he was good at this, and he truly believed it when they told him they were going to make the world better through him. The thought of killing never bothered him, he learned to take orders well, and with all his training he couldn’t even think straight even if he wanted to think for himself. Eventually he was close to being old enough to be sent to battle and in preparation for that he was transferred to training facility. To get to the training facility they loaded him up in a cargo van and drove him there and for a brief few minutes he felt a taste of freedom. A part of his will was awoken the second the sun touched his skin for the first time and he felt the slightest breeze through his wing’s feathers. He could no longer be content with following orders from those who would keep him from freedom.
He failed his training exercises, rebelling harder than he ever had as a child, raging against a life spent in captivity. He was sent back to his original cage almost immediately. It was decided that his training had not been enough, he had not been properly broken. Lucky for him they never got the chance to retrain him, almost immediately after he was returned from the other training facility, Flick returned from battle and he and the rest of the flock managed their escape. For the first time in his life Crash knew true freedom, something he would die before ever giving up.
Name: Dizzy Age: 16 Gender: M DNA: Great White Egret (Ardea alba), White Winged Vampire Bat (Diaemus youngi)
Personality:
Dizzy isn’t selfish, more so he’s simply thoughtless and short sighted with an unhealthy side dish of oblivious. He likes his solitude and space, often resulting in a noticeable rift between him and the rest of the Flock, but he’s not heartless or uncaring, and secretly he does enjoy the love and comfort of his peers, he just doesn’t like to encourage them lest they get carried away. He has a brave and adventurous streak as well, enjoying exploration and daring to toe the rules.
Appearance:
Dizzy is short for his kind, but average on the whole. He enjoys a rather athletic build, excelling in the fitness trials. He has thick dark hair, warm brown skin, and wide dark eyes. He is hardly ever seen without either his tinted training goggles or his pair of cheap shades, designed to help him function in normal lighting without blinding his sensitive eyes. Smiles are few and far between, hiding his unusually straight teeth due to their less than human appearance, each of them pointedly sharp, making his genuine smiles small and unrevealing, and his wide grins more threatening. His wings are thick with curling soft white feathers, and they have a trim of even brighter white along the wing tips. His clothing choices are not typically form fitting, often consisting of worn, ripped, or faded articles that are too small or too large, but he hordes bright colors and trendy accessories, like earrings and bandanas.
Other:
Dizzy’s name is well earned, he was often confused and not quite ‘all there’ as a kid. “What?” is still his catch phrase even years after he overcame his ‘dizzy spells.’ Combining this and his easily distracted mind with his uncomfortably precise hearing and tendency to be blinded by even mediocre lighting and Dizzy did indeed spend quite a lot of time being dizzy.
His unusual attributes, the ones outside the norm for the Flock, include weaknesses as well as strengths; such as his supernaturally advanced hearing, and the drawback of being overly sensitive to loud noises and easily distracted by faraway sounds. Similarly his night vision is better than most humans can see in the day, but even average day-time or artificial light levels can blind him. Dizzy also has a not so subtle vampire’s bite, with many of his teeth being unusually pointed, specifically his canines and first premolars, and his saliva is full of powerful anticoagulants which make his bite likely to make his opponent bleed out if they aren’t careful. Dizzy’s fangs aren’t the only sharp weapon in his body’s repertoire though, he also has a set of mean claws, unassuming at first glance, but subtly hooked and thick, strong and sharp enough to tear skin, if only to make shallow cuts. Of his more relative to the Flock skills, Dizzy has taken to flying and strength with great talent, but flounders when made to apply too much grace or agility, however he does have an impressive sprint, and a positively predatory leap.
History:
At his youngest the scientists neglected Dizzy, leaving him to his own devices apart from the few times they attempted to make him pay attention to lectures or get concrete answers on his tests out of him, but usually he was simply subjected to basic scans and assessments before being left in his cage to amuse himself- which he did, listening to everything going on rooms away and playing with his food and generally avoiding the other children. Finally he was deemed old enough to be given proper medication for his inattention, and after a slew of vomit- and fever-inducing drug trials, they worked out a specially tailored attention-boosting drug just for him. Eventually he outgrew the ‘dizzy spells’ and no longer needed it, culminating in a nasty bout of withdrawal when they stopped giving it to him, but for the majority of his childhood he needed aids and special treatment the other children didn’t- and was constantly reprimanded and made to pay for it.
He was sensitive to light, he could see all the right colors- mostly, sometimes purple was iffy - but his eyes couldn’t process the excess brightness and resulted in copious amounts of squinting and shielding his eyes before finally someone bought him a cheap pair of sunglasses from the supermarket, and then eventually a pair of tinted pool goggles from the same place when the glasses kept falling off during physical training. Alarms and too-loud simulations quickly overwhelmed him, causing him such pain as to collapse screaming and clutching at his ears, the persistent ringing staying with him for days afterward, and so the scientists gave him ear plugs, which he constantly lost, resulting in the Flock finding a lone misplaced earbud in their personal space on a regular basis no matter where they went or what they were doing.
About the time puberty struck Dizzy began to make great strides in overcoming his ‘disabilities’, building up a resistance to louder and louder noises, and maintaining some sense of sight in most well-lit rooms, though both situations left him extremely uncomfortable and often with the dull throb of constant pain behind his eyes and in his ear drums. Other changes came to him, his adult teeth had been coming in oddly shaped for a while then, but the last of them pushed through as a set of questionably unsubtle fangs, and his tests revealed unique properties in his saliva. It was then that he stopped being the failure runt of the litter, setting off to training and exams with something to prove; and for his efforts he began excelling in class and on the mat, mostly on par with the rest of Flock for once, sometimes even managing to edge out the others and make the top score.
Going on seventeen Dizzy has both settled into his skin, and not. He feels awkward and estranged from the others, having taken much longer to tie that familial bond, and then saddled with the need to prove he was just as good as them he’d stepped on more than one set of toes, and fended off more than one kind gesture. He’s much less moody these days, not as standoffish, but distant all the same. He’s as invested in this gamble for freedom as any of them, but if anyone’s most likely to wander off without a word and never be heard from again, it would be Dizzy. An unlikely scenario, he’d be lonely, and for all his eye-rolling and hasty retreats for a moment of solitude, he does care for his kin... he just maybe also cares for going to the cinema by himself, without telling anyone. And the beach. And maybe that flashy distracting concert down the street. Also, those cats are cute and he may spend a few hours following them around town if left unsupervised, and really who needs supervision? Not Dizzy, that’s for sure. (Dizzy. Dizzy needs supervision.)
Personality: A serious, calculated, stone cold woman, Seven was one of several survivors, primarily experimented and bred by Chimera to be the ultimate hunter. Being bred as such, and being confined in a facility since she was born, Seven is detached to any type of normal living. She never had a real family, nor a real childhood even. If not training, which mostly consisted of weapons handling and agility based exercises, she is mostly left alone in her cell and rarely had any type of contact with other kids like her. Chimera is very meticulous of their healthy subjects, and because of Seven showing great potential, she was monitored twice as strict as the other kids.
The only thing she is taught to do all her life is to hunt. And undoubtedly, she is very good at it but only in exchange of her own freedom, that is why she may come of as ignorant of the conventional, everyday things and doings of life outside. Though whenever she does go outside, she is carefully briefed, having no problems in following rules and protocols ordained by the organisation and the outside world.
Appearance: Seven stands a good 5 feet and 10 inches tall, quite physically fit due to her training, her jet black hair reaches up to her waist, contrasting her pallid complexion. Her dark sullen eyes would show little to no emotion, and if it ever does, it's surprisingly enough to brighten the room. She has facial piercings, one on the septum and one on the lower lip.
As for her outfit, she wears typical street clothes to blend in, consisting mostly of dark tones such as leather jackets, dull colored coats over shirts/tank tops (perfect for hiding small hand held weapons.), a pair of fitted grey jeans and leather boots. She also wears leather bracelets, choker necklaces earnings for accessories.
Other: How did she ever get the name Seven, you ask. A typical story really, she was one of the seventh subjects in a batch of new born children to be experimented on by Project Manticore, and one of the very few that time who survived the process.
Despite her dark and sullen demeanour, Seven is quite naive and childlike. She is easily amused of the simplest things in life. Such as flowers, movies, nature and simple books. Due to the fact that she lived all her life differently, it was her way of wanting to keep up with the life she missed.
History:
Seven was born to a street junkie and Chimera that time, under the guise of a charity org had 'helped' her to provide proper care for the child she was carrying. Sadly her mother 'died' of complications due to childbirth, and Chimera took the chance of adopting the baby to be experimented on under Project Manticore. Thankfully, Seven had survived through the cruel process, and by childhood she grew up shy, reserved and anti social. At times they would let her interact with the other kids, and is mostly locked up in her cell if she wasn't being trained or brainwashed.
When she grew up, she became a capable lapdog for the Chimera, doing various dirty jobs for them either retrieving runaways, doing courier jobs or eliminating whistleblowers. Either way this showed her loyalty to the organisation clearly, but as much as she was willing to take a bullet for them, Seven is taking slight interest of a different life outside. This doesn't mean her devotion is slowly being strayed, it's just that the thought of being 'normal' seemed nice to her.
