Metanoia
Name: Zinerva Mireia Alhana
Alias: Metanoia
Age: 22
Alignment: Independent (Hero)
Loyalty: None (yet)
Appearance:
Long silver hair and pale blue eyes steal the show at first glance, but a closer inspection reveals oddities hidden beneath her ocean eyes. Her skin is too pale—it’s smooth and soft and resilient all at once, and it shimmers faintly in the light of the moon. Her teeth are too sharp—they almost glow like ivory soaked in milk, each lustrous chip of fine china a razor’s edge hidden behind pale pink lips. Her body is somehow correct in proportions but almost erroneous in the minutiae, a thin band of white around her pupils nearly luminesces in the dark, and her movements are sinuous and unsettling—every little detail inspected too closely screams inhuman, but there’s no telltale sign of explicit wrongness.
She’s a bit shorter than average at 5’ 1”, having a thin frame packed with lean muscle and little body fat. Her silver hair hangs down to the middle of her back, framing a regal face with delicate features. She usually has a small smile on her face, and does her best to keep her body language friendly and unthreatening.
On the rare occasions that she either wanders out of her home as a parahuman or meets with unexpected guests, she wears a loose, silky blue gown that more resembles sleepwear than an actual costume. Two iridescent blue-black feather-like structures peek out from underneath her hair near the crown of her skull, and a layer of similar feathery tendrils are overlaid to conceal her face like a domino mask. To further conceal her identity, her speaking voice consists of two voices harmonizing as one.
Her casual wear is a set of loose, comfy pajamas that are suitable, if a bit odd, for wearing in public—especially when combined with boots and sunglasses.
Sometimes she forgets to change out of her casual wear.
History:
A hundred and twenty feet below the surface of the four-point-nine square kilometer Standley Lake, Zinerva tears at her skin and flesh in a frenzy. She’s found herself a new idea, a half-baked hypothesis turned into something testable in a moment of inspiration. Blood blooms in the murky waters of her painstakingly tunneled lair, ribbons of muscle fiber and skin floating around her as she strips her right forearm down to the bone. As she works, part of her carefully modified brain—nothing too extreme, just a slightly thickened corpus callosum and some conceptual power-provided adjustments—focuses on the strands of flesh floating around her, each piece of still-living tissue glowing hot in her senses.
A moment later the discarded bits of meat shudder and jerk in synchronicity, the movements resolving into a smoother lateral motion as they slither away into the darkness. Zinerva’s tongue slides over her razor-sharp teeth to peek out from behind her lips and taste her blood in the water as she works. The mingled scent of iron and algae is nostalgic, as it always is, and her lips curve into a smile as she muses on the past few months.
____________________
“You have no right to control my life like this,” Zinerva whispered hoarsely into the phone, her hand clutching the steering wheel.
There was an enraged shriek on the other end. “I have every right, and you’re going to listen to me! Do you understand? I said, do you understand, Zinerva Mireia Alhana?”
Zinerva heart pounded in her ears, every word reverberating in her skull. She could almost picture her mother’s finger jabbing into her face as she said that, a wild look in the older woman’s eyes as she would back Zinerva into a corner. She’d grab one of Zinerva’s shoulders and squeeze, painfully, maybe even shove her around a bit if her father wasn’t home. Zinerva hadn’t been born with either of her parents’ physical prowess—she was somehow shorter than her mother by a good seven inches and frailer as well—so fighting back physically had never been an option for her.
“I don’t understand,” Zinerva begged, the hint of a sob in her voice. “I don’t understand, I don’t know why you think I have to do this, why you’re selling me like ca—”
“Shut your mouth,” Katlyn Alhana hissed. “I didn’t raise you for twenty fucking years to hear those words coming out of your mouth. I don’t want to hear any more whining from you—you’ll fly back here to meet with the Anderson boy whether you like it or not, and you better make a good impression, or so help me I will—”
“SHUT UP,” Zinerva screamed, tears streaming down her face. She flinched as she realized what she had just said, her hand jerking the steering wheel as she instinctively tried to shield herself.
“What did you just say to me?”
Zinerva bit her tongue, her vision blurring as she choked on her words. “I-I said—”
The tiny fence lining the side of the road snapped as the BMW ploughed through it, wheels spinning uselessly on gravel as it spun out of control. Speed limits had been ignored in the heat of the conversation, so as the car slid over a small incline and the front of the vehicle slammed into a tree, its spin turned into a roll and the convertible flipped over its side.
Zinerva found herself soaring through the air, a moment of confusing weightlessness before she met the ground. An arm snapped, ribs cracked, a knee twisted in the wrong direction—but Zinerva was barely aware of any of her injuries as she rolled down the sandy slope, a glancing blow to her head having sent her thoughts into incoherence.
She woke an indeterminate amount of time later, her body alternating between numbness and screaming pain depending on what limb she tried to move and how deeply she breathed. The side of her head hurt and she was vaguely nauseous, her vision swaying with every breath she took. She was in trouble, she realized. Her car had been a gift from her father, something her mother had vehemently opposed, and now this would only serve as additional ammunition for her mother to use against her. And the...the meeting. How was she supposed to meet the Andersons if she was injured like this? She’d have to miss her meeting, which would only make her mother angrier.
No...her mother...her mother couldn’t find out. Couldn’t realize. Couldn’t know about this. She’d have to...clean up the evidence. Somehow.
She let out a sob of pain and fear as she rolled herself over, craning her neck and trying to find her car. It was hard to focus, one of her eyes smeared and blurry and the overwhelming taste of iron in her mouth. There was a surge of adrenaline—almost unnoticeable over the dizziness in her head and the pounding in her chest—when she saw the car. It was a smoking wreck, the hood crumpled and the windshield spiderwebbed with cracks.
Nonononono
How was she...how was she supposed to drive the car away like this? What...what could she do? She had to…
She tried pushing herself up, maybe so she could stand and...and do something. Her attempt brought about a sensation of grinding bone in her right arm and she spasmed in agony, falling back down with a choked scream. As she slipped a few more feet down the sandy slope, she curled herself around her arm and ribs in a futile bid to protect them. A gentle splash heralded her arrival into an inch of murky lake water, her thin dress offering no protection against the freezing cold. Sobbing quietly, her head spinning from pain and dizziness, she tried moving her twisted knee out of the dirty water, hoarsely screaming her throat raw as each movement rewarded her with additional nausea and pain. A few seconds into her attempt, she leaned over and vomited, drool and bile and tears mixing and dripping from her chin as she stared into the distorted reflections of stars painted onto the surface of the lake.
She loved swimming. It had spoken to her the first time she had set her eyes onto the massive pool at one of her father’s hotels, the area emptied of guests and privately reserved just for her. The waters had been clear and enchanting, the sun-dappled surface of the pool inviting her to jump in. Her father had stopped her from throwing herself into the deep end and drowning, instead patiently teaching her how to swim in the shallow end at first before letting her go further. She’d taken to swimming with great enthusiasm, proudly showing her father how she could open her eyes underwater and how long she was able to hold her breath. Those were the memories that she cherished, the days she reminded herself of when life became difficult.
Her mother had ruined it, of course. Katlyn had taken her aptitude for swimming as a sign that she could become something greater and forced her into swimming lessons. When Zinerva had asked to quit, her mother had berated and guilted her into continuing her participation in the swim team until her dad had finally pointed out that it was negatively affecting her grades.
Zinerva slumped into the shallow waters, letting the gentle waves rock her body and clean her face and her silver-dyed hair. It was sort of funny, really. The pool from her best memories was almost the opposite of this one—the sun shining upon it instead of stars, one body of water meticulously cleaned while the other was filled with mud and algae, one warm and the other bone-bitingly cold.
Still, if this was the end, well...there were worse places to die.
Two swarms of brilliant lights danced in her vision. Each entity was vast and multidimensional, their bodies unconstrained by physical laws and terrifyingly beautiful to behold.
____________________
Zinerva left the waters at dawn.
The sunrise painted the surface of the lake with brilliant orange fire, temporarily hiding the murky depths underneath their radiance. Zinerva thought that the lake looked beautiful, and hoped that she would be able to see this every day for the rest of eternity.
The car was where she’d last seen it, but now it was cold and lifeless, the smoke having long since petered out. She tried her best to wring the water from her long hair and soaked dress as she searched for her purse. Maybe she could make it easier to dry herself if she used her power? At that thought, something pushed at the edge her mind, giving her plans and modifications that might suit her purpose. Unfortunately, she had other things to do, so she reluctantly pushed it aside for now.
Her purse was a few feet away from her car, having been thrown out of the vehicle when it had flipped. She found her phone inside, somehow undamaged, with two missed calls and a dozen furious texts. She skimmed through them, a bit surprised upon realizing how childish her mother could be when she was upset. Her mother seemed to think that Zinerva had hung up on her, which was perfectly fine in Zinerva’s opinion.
The car needed to be towed, so she dialed her insurance company first. The Andersons needed to be notified that the meeting was canceled, so she simply sent them a text. It was early in the morning, so she needed to be courteous.
She looked at the wreck again, her brows furrowing just the tiniest bit. It wouldn’t be plausible to have come out of the accident without a single injury. Bringing her fingernail to her forehead, she dug a shallow gash through her flesh that began to bleed profusely, as head wounds so often did. Hopefully, it would be appropriately severe and yet simultaneously not serious enough to require medical treatment. The wound began closing immediately, of course, so she took a moment and told her power that the current state of that portion of her skin was the optimal one, its prime condition. She’d figure out a less clumsy stopgap later.
She dialed a taxi next. Her clothes were sopping wet, but hopefully the taxi driver would accept a large tip in compensation. The phone call with her mother could wait—she needed to get back to her apartment and change out of these clothes, deal with the car situation, tell her friends that she was still alive...then finally deal with her mother so she could start doing more important things.
____________________
The call went through. There was a brief pause on other end before her mother spoke. “Zi—”
“Mother,” Zinerva said blandly, cutting her off. “Good afternoon.”
She’d changed into her most comfortable set of pajamas and was lounging on the loveseat in her apartment, her feet propped up on the armrest and an assortment of food she’d grabbed from her fridge laid out on the table in front of her. The foods were roughly sorted by caloric density and macronutrients in an attempt to determine how her power reacted to her consumption of each food item. The yellow perch—or what she thought might have been one, she hadn’t gone fishing with her father since seventh grade—that she’d caught in the lake last night had been surprisingly delicious, so she wanted to double check to see if her powers had done anything odd with her perception of other foods.
“I’m a parahuman now,” she continued, picking out a small slice of cheese. “You understand what that means, yes?”
There was another pause, longer this time. “What kind of nonsense are you spewing now, Zinerva?” her mother demanded. But Zinerva thought she could hear a slight waver in her tone.
“Because this has happened, I need some time to myself to deal with things,” Zinerva said vaguely, continuing as though she hadn’t heard her mother. “Unfortunately, this means I won’t be able to fly back in time to attend the meeting with the Andersons.”
Zinerva popped the morsel of cheese into her mouth, chewing slowly as she wondered how she hadn’t simply said “no” to her mother in the past. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Her mother had been in control of more aspects of her life in the past, and those shackles had weakened after she’d moved to a different city for college and completely broken after she’d become a parahuman last night. Her mother had also had substantial leverage over her prior to last night—in both emotional and physical forms—neither of which were still relevant.
“Make sure to tell Father about this, please?” Zinerva said. “I know he’s very busy at the moment, and I don’t want to bother him.”
There was only silence on the other end. The cheese tasted as delicious as it ever did, a simple goat cheese infused with red wine. Not quite as expensive as some of the other artisanal cheeses, but delightful nonetheless.
Zinerva glanced up at the clock, noting the time. “I need to go now,” she said. “Please try to understand if I’m not available to pick up any future calls.”
“Zinerva, wait,” her mother said.
Zinerva almost hung up on the spot when she heard her mother use that tone of voice. Katlyn was now her preparing to guilt her into something—she’d use a softer tone and throw in a compliment to make Zinerva think that she really did only want the best for her daughter. The worst part was that it worked far too often, Zinerva desperately hoping that her mother had truly had a change of heart every time. But it was a lie, wasn’t it? It just made everything that came after hurt even more.
Zinerva stayed on the line anyways. Maybe because that was the rational decision, so that her mother wouldn’t do something drastic and send people after her or something of that nature. Or maybe it was just because she was stupidly clinging to her last remaining shred of hope.
“You’re our only daughter,” her mother said, and Zinerva wanted to smash her phone into the table. “You can’t do this to us, your parents. Please, we only want to do what’s right for you. We have decades of experience, and you’ve only just graduated from college. Don’t do anything rash, Zinerva, let us help you.”
Zinerva tasted blood and found that she had bitten halfway through her tongue. She swallowed the taste of iron as her tongue repaired itself, and did her best to loosen her grip on her phone before she crushed it.
“Please, Zinerva. Think of what your father and I have created and built. We need you to continue our legacy, to grow what we have into something that we can truly be proud of. The Anderson boy is nice, I’m sure you’ll like him, and his family is wealthier and more powerful than ours.” Her tone hardened. “You have no idea just how hard your father worked to set up that meeting with them—and now you’re throwing it all away? You’ve had your fun in college, now it’s time to settle down and start being an adult. And being an adult means having a job or starting a family—not wasting your life away partying and drinking. Do you understand, Zinerva?”
Zinerva squeezed her eyes shut, unwilling to let the tears fall. She was taking deep breaths, her fingers tearing through the leather of the couch, her jaw clenched so tight that she felt as though her teeth might shatter. That would be a relief, really—at the very least it would distract her from being forced to feel this way again.
“I’m going to—”
Zinerva was almost growling, her throat making noises that she hadn’t thought it could make. That was unbecoming of her, so she cleared her throat and tried again.
“I’m going to live for a very long time,” she said roughly, clamping down on her urge to scream at her mother. “My power has changed things. So maybe I’ll get around to running your little empire in a few decades.”
She hung up before her mother could respond, setting the phone down on the couch and shutting it off. Then she slammed her hands into the glass table in front of her, feeling her bones fracture on the metal frame as jagged glass tore through her flesh. She watched as the food hit the floor, crackers and lox and prosciutto mixing with glass and blood, her hands numb as endorphins flooded her body and dulled the throbbing pain.
Weak. Her flesh was still tender, still soft. But that would change, in time. She’d fix that.
She curled up on the couch again, heedless of the blood dripping from her hands as she wrapped herself in her blanket. Even thought it was a relief that situation over with, she wondered if she could have handled it better. It would be inconvenient if her mother cut off her funds, mostly because she’d have to find somewhere safe and secure to stash her violin. Renting storage cost money, after all, and she didn’t have a real job.
But that was for later. She was done talking to her mother, and so the only thing she could do was wait for her mother to make a decision. There was no point in worrying about something that was out of her hands now.
____________________
The lake seemed like a wonderful place to live in. The waters had been a constant, soothing pressure wrapped around her, rocking her in their embrace and promising darkness and safety. The lake was huge and teemed with life, and according to the signboards it was periodically stocked with fish. It could be her new home, would be her new home, and already she was missing its embrace.
Last night hadn’t been her first time around the area. The lake was relaxing to drive around at night, the area quiet and away from the hustle and bustle of the city. She hated having conversations with her mother in her apartment. The apartment was supposed to be a safe place, somewhere she could go home and relax, and she hadn’t wanted to taint it. Now, though, she supposed she wouldn’t be answering her mother’s calls here either.
She thanked the taxi driver as she stepped out of the vehicle, smiling and nodding when he asked her if she was sure she wanted to get out here.
“If you can’t afford to go any further, I can drive you the rest of the way,” he said, looking dubiously at her pajamas and duffel bag. “Seriously, it’ll be on me. Free of charge.”
“Thank you, but I’ll be alright,” she said, waving him off. “Drive safe.”
As the taxi slowly pulled away into the night, Zinerva took a deep breath of cool, crisp air. Standley Lake Regional Park had technically closed to visitors a few hours ago, but Zinerva still looked around to make sure no one else was nearby before walking toward the lake. A convenient stand of trees provided ample cover as she climbed into the foliage of one of the larger trees, her fingernails digging into the bark with ease as she hauled herself up. Sitting in the crook formed by a thick branch protruding from the tree trunk, she waited for the last of the stragglers to leave the park. It had taken a few tries of removing her eyes and regenerating them to get the night vision close to how she wanted it, but it had been worth it in the end.
When it finally seemed completely safe, Zinerva stripped and neatly packed all her clothes into the duffel bag, then hopped out of the tree and made her way into the water. Musculature improved through power-guided suggestions rippled underneath her skin as she glided through the darkness, her lungs closing off as she slid sharp fingernails into her neck and torso to free her gills. She knew there had to be a more efficient way to do that, but she was new to her power and her control of it was clumsy. Feathery red filaments expanded from the slits in her neck and torso, allowing her to draw oxygen from the water as she dived deeper into the depths of the lake.
The lake covered a large area, larger than she could explore in a single night, so she spent her time looking for the deepest parts of the lake she could hide in. A fishing map she had acquired told her where the deepest points were, but actually locating them in person was hard to do, especially since she was still figuring out the logistics of seeing more than a few feet ahead of her in the cloudy lake waters. Bioluminescence or simply bringing a flashlight that worked underwater were solutions, but she wasn’t familiar with the lake yet and didn’t want to risk being discovered. Didn’t fish have some kind of sensory system? She needed to look that up. Her power nudged her, providing a solution, but it was very basic and didn’t seem to have the sensitivity that she wanted.
Her feet touched the silt at the bottom of the lake, a small cloud of particles swirling up around her legs as she dug her toes into the sand. Human legs weren’t very good for swimming, but she still needed them for walking on land and she wasn’t sure if her regeneration could handle breaking down her human legs and rearranging them so often. She’d have to run some tests.
She gradually allowed herself to sink further, eventually resting on the muddy bottom as she gazed upward into the darkness. Her silver hair floated in a curtain around her head, drifting gently along the currents.
This was nice. Here, she only had herself and her goal. No outside distractions, no demands from the world. She knew she’d have to get out eventually, make sure her friends knew she was alive so they wouldn’t report her as missing, but she’d eventually get them used to the idea that she was going to be more busy with personal matters and then she’d be able to stay here for longer periods of time.
For now, though, they wouldn’t notice if she was gone for a day or two. She’d spend her time lounging about in this lake, looking around for a suitable lair, learning to avoid where too many people fished, and improving herself. The last one was the most important. She wanted to get started as soon as possible, but she was getting tired and knew that resting would allow her to function in an optimal state. Maybe there was a way she could remove her need to sleep, or at least decrease it? She didn’t want to touch her brain until she get better with her powers, though, so she’d have to deal with it for now.
She settled deeper into the mud, allowing her eyes to drift shut. She had plenty of ideas, but no concrete solutions. Perhaps they’d arrive in her dreams…
A moment later the discarded bits of meat shudder and jerk in synchronicity, the movements resolving into a smoother lateral motion as they slither away into the darkness. Zinerva’s tongue slides over her razor-sharp teeth to peek out from behind her lips and taste her blood in the water as she works. The mingled scent of iron and algae is nostalgic, as it always is, and her lips curve into a smile as she muses on the past few months.
____________________
“You have no right to control my life like this,” Zinerva whispered hoarsely into the phone, her hand clutching the steering wheel.
There was an enraged shriek on the other end. “I have every right, and you’re going to listen to me! Do you understand? I said, do you understand, Zinerva Mireia Alhana?”
Zinerva heart pounded in her ears, every word reverberating in her skull. She could almost picture her mother’s finger jabbing into her face as she said that, a wild look in the older woman’s eyes as she would back Zinerva into a corner. She’d grab one of Zinerva’s shoulders and squeeze, painfully, maybe even shove her around a bit if her father wasn’t home. Zinerva hadn’t been born with either of her parents’ physical prowess—she was somehow shorter than her mother by a good seven inches and frailer as well—so fighting back physically had never been an option for her.
“I don’t understand,” Zinerva begged, the hint of a sob in her voice. “I don’t understand, I don’t know why you think I have to do this, why you’re selling me like ca—”
“Shut your mouth,” Katlyn Alhana hissed. “I didn’t raise you for twenty fucking years to hear those words coming out of your mouth. I don’t want to hear any more whining from you—you’ll fly back here to meet with the Anderson boy whether you like it or not, and you better make a good impression, or so help me I will—”
“SHUT UP,” Zinerva screamed, tears streaming down her face. She flinched as she realized what she had just said, her hand jerking the steering wheel as she instinctively tried to shield herself.
“What did you just say to me?”
Zinerva bit her tongue, her vision blurring as she choked on her words. “I-I said—”
The tiny fence lining the side of the road snapped as the BMW ploughed through it, wheels spinning uselessly on gravel as it spun out of control. Speed limits had been ignored in the heat of the conversation, so as the car slid over a small incline and the front of the vehicle slammed into a tree, its spin turned into a roll and the convertible flipped over its side.
Zinerva found herself soaring through the air, a moment of confusing weightlessness before she met the ground. An arm snapped, ribs cracked, a knee twisted in the wrong direction—but Zinerva was barely aware of any of her injuries as she rolled down the sandy slope, a glancing blow to her head having sent her thoughts into incoherence.
She woke an indeterminate amount of time later, her body alternating between numbness and screaming pain depending on what limb she tried to move and how deeply she breathed. The side of her head hurt and she was vaguely nauseous, her vision swaying with every breath she took. She was in trouble, she realized. Her car had been a gift from her father, something her mother had vehemently opposed, and now this would only serve as additional ammunition for her mother to use against her. And the...the meeting. How was she supposed to meet the Andersons if she was injured like this? She’d have to miss her meeting, which would only make her mother angrier.
No...her mother...her mother couldn’t find out. Couldn’t realize. Couldn’t know about this. She’d have to...clean up the evidence. Somehow.
She let out a sob of pain and fear as she rolled herself over, craning her neck and trying to find her car. It was hard to focus, one of her eyes smeared and blurry and the overwhelming taste of iron in her mouth. There was a surge of adrenaline—almost unnoticeable over the dizziness in her head and the pounding in her chest—when she saw the car. It was a smoking wreck, the hood crumpled and the windshield spiderwebbed with cracks.
Nonononono
How was she...how was she supposed to drive the car away like this? What...what could she do? She had to…
She tried pushing herself up, maybe so she could stand and...and do something. Her attempt brought about a sensation of grinding bone in her right arm and she spasmed in agony, falling back down with a choked scream. As she slipped a few more feet down the sandy slope, she curled herself around her arm and ribs in a futile bid to protect them. A gentle splash heralded her arrival into an inch of murky lake water, her thin dress offering no protection against the freezing cold. Sobbing quietly, her head spinning from pain and dizziness, she tried moving her twisted knee out of the dirty water, hoarsely screaming her throat raw as each movement rewarded her with additional nausea and pain. A few seconds into her attempt, she leaned over and vomited, drool and bile and tears mixing and dripping from her chin as she stared into the distorted reflections of stars painted onto the surface of the lake.
She loved swimming. It had spoken to her the first time she had set her eyes onto the massive pool at one of her father’s hotels, the area emptied of guests and privately reserved just for her. The waters had been clear and enchanting, the sun-dappled surface of the pool inviting her to jump in. Her father had stopped her from throwing herself into the deep end and drowning, instead patiently teaching her how to swim in the shallow end at first before letting her go further. She’d taken to swimming with great enthusiasm, proudly showing her father how she could open her eyes underwater and how long she was able to hold her breath. Those were the memories that she cherished, the days she reminded herself of when life became difficult.
Her mother had ruined it, of course. Katlyn had taken her aptitude for swimming as a sign that she could become something greater and forced her into swimming lessons. When Zinerva had asked to quit, her mother had berated and guilted her into continuing her participation in the swim team until her dad had finally pointed out that it was negatively affecting her grades.
Zinerva slumped into the shallow waters, letting the gentle waves rock her body and clean her face and her silver-dyed hair. It was sort of funny, really. The pool from her best memories was almost the opposite of this one—the sun shining upon it instead of stars, one body of water meticulously cleaned while the other was filled with mud and algae, one warm and the other bone-bitingly cold.
Still, if this was the end, well...there were worse places to die.
Two swarms of brilliant lights danced in her vision. Each entity was vast and multidimensional, their bodies unconstrained by physical laws and terrifyingly beautiful to behold.
____________________
Zinerva left the waters at dawn.
The sunrise painted the surface of the lake with brilliant orange fire, temporarily hiding the murky depths underneath their radiance. Zinerva thought that the lake looked beautiful, and hoped that she would be able to see this every day for the rest of eternity.
The car was where she’d last seen it, but now it was cold and lifeless, the smoke having long since petered out. She tried her best to wring the water from her long hair and soaked dress as she searched for her purse. Maybe she could make it easier to dry herself if she used her power? At that thought, something pushed at the edge her mind, giving her plans and modifications that might suit her purpose. Unfortunately, she had other things to do, so she reluctantly pushed it aside for now.
Her purse was a few feet away from her car, having been thrown out of the vehicle when it had flipped. She found her phone inside, somehow undamaged, with two missed calls and a dozen furious texts. She skimmed through them, a bit surprised upon realizing how childish her mother could be when she was upset. Her mother seemed to think that Zinerva had hung up on her, which was perfectly fine in Zinerva’s opinion.
The car needed to be towed, so she dialed her insurance company first. The Andersons needed to be notified that the meeting was canceled, so she simply sent them a text. It was early in the morning, so she needed to be courteous.
She looked at the wreck again, her brows furrowing just the tiniest bit. It wouldn’t be plausible to have come out of the accident without a single injury. Bringing her fingernail to her forehead, she dug a shallow gash through her flesh that began to bleed profusely, as head wounds so often did. Hopefully, it would be appropriately severe and yet simultaneously not serious enough to require medical treatment. The wound began closing immediately, of course, so she took a moment and told her power that the current state of that portion of her skin was the optimal one, its prime condition. She’d figure out a less clumsy stopgap later.
She dialed a taxi next. Her clothes were sopping wet, but hopefully the taxi driver would accept a large tip in compensation. The phone call with her mother could wait—she needed to get back to her apartment and change out of these clothes, deal with the car situation, tell her friends that she was still alive...then finally deal with her mother so she could start doing more important things.
____________________
The call went through. There was a brief pause on other end before her mother spoke. “Zi—”
“Mother,” Zinerva said blandly, cutting her off. “Good afternoon.”
She’d changed into her most comfortable set of pajamas and was lounging on the loveseat in her apartment, her feet propped up on the armrest and an assortment of food she’d grabbed from her fridge laid out on the table in front of her. The foods were roughly sorted by caloric density and macronutrients in an attempt to determine how her power reacted to her consumption of each food item. The yellow perch—or what she thought might have been one, she hadn’t gone fishing with her father since seventh grade—that she’d caught in the lake last night had been surprisingly delicious, so she wanted to double check to see if her powers had done anything odd with her perception of other foods.
“I’m a parahuman now,” she continued, picking out a small slice of cheese. “You understand what that means, yes?”
There was another pause, longer this time. “What kind of nonsense are you spewing now, Zinerva?” her mother demanded. But Zinerva thought she could hear a slight waver in her tone.
“Because this has happened, I need some time to myself to deal with things,” Zinerva said vaguely, continuing as though she hadn’t heard her mother. “Unfortunately, this means I won’t be able to fly back in time to attend the meeting with the Andersons.”
Zinerva popped the morsel of cheese into her mouth, chewing slowly as she wondered how she hadn’t simply said “no” to her mother in the past. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Her mother had been in control of more aspects of her life in the past, and those shackles had weakened after she’d moved to a different city for college and completely broken after she’d become a parahuman last night. Her mother had also had substantial leverage over her prior to last night—in both emotional and physical forms—neither of which were still relevant.
“Make sure to tell Father about this, please?” Zinerva said. “I know he’s very busy at the moment, and I don’t want to bother him.”
There was only silence on the other end. The cheese tasted as delicious as it ever did, a simple goat cheese infused with red wine. Not quite as expensive as some of the other artisanal cheeses, but delightful nonetheless.
Zinerva glanced up at the clock, noting the time. “I need to go now,” she said. “Please try to understand if I’m not available to pick up any future calls.”
“Zinerva, wait,” her mother said.
Zinerva almost hung up on the spot when she heard her mother use that tone of voice. Katlyn was now her preparing to guilt her into something—she’d use a softer tone and throw in a compliment to make Zinerva think that she really did only want the best for her daughter. The worst part was that it worked far too often, Zinerva desperately hoping that her mother had truly had a change of heart every time. But it was a lie, wasn’t it? It just made everything that came after hurt even more.
Zinerva stayed on the line anyways. Maybe because that was the rational decision, so that her mother wouldn’t do something drastic and send people after her or something of that nature. Or maybe it was just because she was stupidly clinging to her last remaining shred of hope.
“You’re our only daughter,” her mother said, and Zinerva wanted to smash her phone into the table. “You can’t do this to us, your parents. Please, we only want to do what’s right for you. We have decades of experience, and you’ve only just graduated from college. Don’t do anything rash, Zinerva, let us help you.”
Zinerva tasted blood and found that she had bitten halfway through her tongue. She swallowed the taste of iron as her tongue repaired itself, and did her best to loosen her grip on her phone before she crushed it.
“Please, Zinerva. Think of what your father and I have created and built. We need you to continue our legacy, to grow what we have into something that we can truly be proud of. The Anderson boy is nice, I’m sure you’ll like him, and his family is wealthier and more powerful than ours.” Her tone hardened. “You have no idea just how hard your father worked to set up that meeting with them—and now you’re throwing it all away? You’ve had your fun in college, now it’s time to settle down and start being an adult. And being an adult means having a job or starting a family—not wasting your life away partying and drinking. Do you understand, Zinerva?”
Zinerva squeezed her eyes shut, unwilling to let the tears fall. She was taking deep breaths, her fingers tearing through the leather of the couch, her jaw clenched so tight that she felt as though her teeth might shatter. That would be a relief, really—at the very least it would distract her from being forced to feel this way again.
“I’m going to—”
Zinerva was almost growling, her throat making noises that she hadn’t thought it could make. That was unbecoming of her, so she cleared her throat and tried again.
“I’m going to live for a very long time,” she said roughly, clamping down on her urge to scream at her mother. “My power has changed things. So maybe I’ll get around to running your little empire in a few decades.”
She hung up before her mother could respond, setting the phone down on the couch and shutting it off. Then she slammed her hands into the glass table in front of her, feeling her bones fracture on the metal frame as jagged glass tore through her flesh. She watched as the food hit the floor, crackers and lox and prosciutto mixing with glass and blood, her hands numb as endorphins flooded her body and dulled the throbbing pain.
Weak. Her flesh was still tender, still soft. But that would change, in time. She’d fix that.
She curled up on the couch again, heedless of the blood dripping from her hands as she wrapped herself in her blanket. Even thought it was a relief that situation over with, she wondered if she could have handled it better. It would be inconvenient if her mother cut off her funds, mostly because she’d have to find somewhere safe and secure to stash her violin. Renting storage cost money, after all, and she didn’t have a real job.
But that was for later. She was done talking to her mother, and so the only thing she could do was wait for her mother to make a decision. There was no point in worrying about something that was out of her hands now.
____________________
The lake seemed like a wonderful place to live in. The waters had been a constant, soothing pressure wrapped around her, rocking her in their embrace and promising darkness and safety. The lake was huge and teemed with life, and according to the signboards it was periodically stocked with fish. It could be her new home, would be her new home, and already she was missing its embrace.
Last night hadn’t been her first time around the area. The lake was relaxing to drive around at night, the area quiet and away from the hustle and bustle of the city. She hated having conversations with her mother in her apartment. The apartment was supposed to be a safe place, somewhere she could go home and relax, and she hadn’t wanted to taint it. Now, though, she supposed she wouldn’t be answering her mother’s calls here either.
She thanked the taxi driver as she stepped out of the vehicle, smiling and nodding when he asked her if she was sure she wanted to get out here.
“If you can’t afford to go any further, I can drive you the rest of the way,” he said, looking dubiously at her pajamas and duffel bag. “Seriously, it’ll be on me. Free of charge.”
“Thank you, but I’ll be alright,” she said, waving him off. “Drive safe.”
As the taxi slowly pulled away into the night, Zinerva took a deep breath of cool, crisp air. Standley Lake Regional Park had technically closed to visitors a few hours ago, but Zinerva still looked around to make sure no one else was nearby before walking toward the lake. A convenient stand of trees provided ample cover as she climbed into the foliage of one of the larger trees, her fingernails digging into the bark with ease as she hauled herself up. Sitting in the crook formed by a thick branch protruding from the tree trunk, she waited for the last of the stragglers to leave the park. It had taken a few tries of removing her eyes and regenerating them to get the night vision close to how she wanted it, but it had been worth it in the end.
When it finally seemed completely safe, Zinerva stripped and neatly packed all her clothes into the duffel bag, then hopped out of the tree and made her way into the water. Musculature improved through power-guided suggestions rippled underneath her skin as she glided through the darkness, her lungs closing off as she slid sharp fingernails into her neck and torso to free her gills. She knew there had to be a more efficient way to do that, but she was new to her power and her control of it was clumsy. Feathery red filaments expanded from the slits in her neck and torso, allowing her to draw oxygen from the water as she dived deeper into the depths of the lake.
The lake covered a large area, larger than she could explore in a single night, so she spent her time looking for the deepest parts of the lake she could hide in. A fishing map she had acquired told her where the deepest points were, but actually locating them in person was hard to do, especially since she was still figuring out the logistics of seeing more than a few feet ahead of her in the cloudy lake waters. Bioluminescence or simply bringing a flashlight that worked underwater were solutions, but she wasn’t familiar with the lake yet and didn’t want to risk being discovered. Didn’t fish have some kind of sensory system? She needed to look that up. Her power nudged her, providing a solution, but it was very basic and didn’t seem to have the sensitivity that she wanted.
Her feet touched the silt at the bottom of the lake, a small cloud of particles swirling up around her legs as she dug her toes into the sand. Human legs weren’t very good for swimming, but she still needed them for walking on land and she wasn’t sure if her regeneration could handle breaking down her human legs and rearranging them so often. She’d have to run some tests.
She gradually allowed herself to sink further, eventually resting on the muddy bottom as she gazed upward into the darkness. Her silver hair floated in a curtain around her head, drifting gently along the currents.
This was nice. Here, she only had herself and her goal. No outside distractions, no demands from the world. She knew she’d have to get out eventually, make sure her friends knew she was alive so they wouldn’t report her as missing, but she’d eventually get them used to the idea that she was going to be more busy with personal matters and then she’d be able to stay here for longer periods of time.
For now, though, they wouldn’t notice if she was gone for a day or two. She’d spend her time lounging about in this lake, looking around for a suitable lair, learning to avoid where too many people fished, and improving herself. The last one was the most important. She wanted to get started as soon as possible, but she was getting tired and knew that resting would allow her to function in an optimal state. Maybe there was a way she could remove her need to sleep, or at least decrease it? She didn’t want to touch her brain until she get better with her powers, though, so she’d have to deal with it for now.
She settled deeper into the mud, allowing her eyes to drift shut. She had plenty of ideas, but no concrete solutions. Perhaps they’d arrive in her dreams…
Zinerva Mireia Alhana was born into a relatively wealthy family, her mother a successful real estate investor and her father owning a small hotel chain. She had a somewhat normal childhood, albeit with a very controlling mother, and found herself enjoying biological sciences more than the business that her parents tried to get her interested in. Her grades would have been average, as her future was all but assured, but her mother was demanding and attempted to push her further, signing her up for extracurriculars and placing her into expensive tutoring sessions. It didn’t help that much, but it was enough for Zinerva to at least have some choices when applying to colleges. In Zinerva’s opinion, the stress wasn’t nearly worth what she had accomplished. The only good thing that came out of it was learning to play the violin, as she found that she actually enjoyed music.
For college, she attended her father’s alma mater, the University of Denver. Though she spent a good portion of her time enjoying her freedom away from her parents, she still managed to graduate with a decent GPA and a degree in Biological Sciences. But once graduation was over, her parents began to push for her to move back to California and start participating in the family businesses. In particular, her mother attempted to set up meetings between her and other potential suitors, all sons of wealthy business magnates. Zinerva refused as much as she could at first, as she didn’t find them attractive and didn’t want to get married so early in her life. Her mother eventually put her foot down, forcing Zinerva to attend, and Zinerva protested, seeing what her mother was doing as equivalent to arranged marriage.
That was the catalyst that led to her trigger event. A heated argument by phone led to a car accident where Zinerva sustained grievous injuries on the relatively remote shores of Lake Standley. Concussed, crippled, and wearing only a thin dress, she stumbled into the chilly waters of Lake Standley and began to succumb to hypothermia and her wounds. That was where she triggered, lying in a few inches of shallow lake water mingled with her own blood.
Her power repaired her injuries and allowed for even further improvement of her body. She spent the night experimenting with her powers, her first modifications geared toward giving her the ability to survive the waters of the lake where she had been reborn. Filled with a newfound sense of possibly power-influenced confidence, she resolved to focus on herself first and foremost instead of caving in to her mother’s demands. She had a serious conversation with her mother that day, and although it was a bit rough she managed to get her point across.
Over the months since then, Zinerva has been dedicated almost solely toward working on improving herself through her power. Her mother was talked down by her father and Zinerva retained her cash flow from them, although it was severely reduced as a sign of their displeasure. It was enough to keep her apartment, though, which has also allowed her to maintain a semblance of her social life and keep abreast of the ongoing events in the city.
She was reluctant to participate in any parahuman activities, as she knew that even though it would be beneficial for her to help keep her city safe in order to insure her own safety, it wouldn’t mean anything if she died in the process of doing so. Recently, however, she’s discovered an interesting aspect of her power through extensive experimentation, allowing her to make “backups” in case she actually dies. She hasn’t tested them yet, however, for obvious reasons, but her power seems to indicate that they would function as expected.
For college, she attended her father’s alma mater, the University of Denver. Though she spent a good portion of her time enjoying her freedom away from her parents, she still managed to graduate with a decent GPA and a degree in Biological Sciences. But once graduation was over, her parents began to push for her to move back to California and start participating in the family businesses. In particular, her mother attempted to set up meetings between her and other potential suitors, all sons of wealthy business magnates. Zinerva refused as much as she could at first, as she didn’t find them attractive and didn’t want to get married so early in her life. Her mother eventually put her foot down, forcing Zinerva to attend, and Zinerva protested, seeing what her mother was doing as equivalent to arranged marriage.
That was the catalyst that led to her trigger event. A heated argument by phone led to a car accident where Zinerva sustained grievous injuries on the relatively remote shores of Lake Standley. Concussed, crippled, and wearing only a thin dress, she stumbled into the chilly waters of Lake Standley and began to succumb to hypothermia and her wounds. That was where she triggered, lying in a few inches of shallow lake water mingled with her own blood.
Her power repaired her injuries and allowed for even further improvement of her body. She spent the night experimenting with her powers, her first modifications geared toward giving her the ability to survive the waters of the lake where she had been reborn. Filled with a newfound sense of possibly power-influenced confidence, she resolved to focus on herself first and foremost instead of caving in to her mother’s demands. She had a serious conversation with her mother that day, and although it was a bit rough she managed to get her point across.
Over the months since then, Zinerva has been dedicated almost solely toward working on improving herself through her power. Her mother was talked down by her father and Zinerva retained her cash flow from them, although it was severely reduced as a sign of their displeasure. It was enough to keep her apartment, though, which has also allowed her to maintain a semblance of her social life and keep abreast of the ongoing events in the city.
She was reluctant to participate in any parahuman activities, as she knew that even though it would be beneficial for her to help keep her city safe in order to insure her own safety, it wouldn’t mean anything if she died in the process of doing so. Recently, however, she’s discovered an interesting aspect of her power through extensive experimentation, allowing her to make “backups” in case she actually dies. She hasn’t tested them yet, however, for obvious reasons, but her power seems to indicate that they would function as expected.
Personality
Motivations: At the moment Zinerva seeks to improve herself, to become greater than she was with every passing day. She also wants to make the city a safe place to live so she can improve herself without being disturbed.
A very long-term side goal of hers is finding a way to somehow purchase Lake Standley from the City of Westminster.
Sexuality: Demisexual, Pansexual
Likes:
- Eating new foods
- Eating raw foods
- Eating food
- Comfortable clothing
- Comfortable places
- Music
- Playing her violin
- Biological Sciences
- Fiction
- Creating new things with her power
- Perfecting herself
Dislikes:
- Uncomfortable clothing
- Uncomfortable places
- Uncomfortable situations
- People who make her feel uncomfortable
- Her mother
- Eating fish with fishing hooks still inside them
- Overly loud boaters
- Overly loud neighbors
Derangement: Though Zinerva is now better at judging situations from a more objective standpoint, she now finds it difficult to derive motivation from anything that isn’t based upon improving herself. In addition, she has a slight obsession with consuming new foods and anything she finds edible in general.
Parahumanism
Skills: Cooking, Fishing (in a manner of speaking), Swimming, Boating, Playing the violin, Singing (she’s decent), Social interaction, Reading scientific papers, Enduring pain, Eating quickly, Hiding
Classification: Brute/Changer
Details:Her power has two main components. The first is her regeneration, allowing her to heal from injuries by regenerating her flesh at a rate of four percent of her mass per second, with a minimum rate of two kilograms per second. Her regeneration rate is limited to a maximum of 400 kilograms per second, which occurs when Zinerva is at 10,000 kilograms of mass. Zinerva can reach this maximal regeneration rate after about 132.5 seconds if she starts with her normal mass of 50 kilograms.
This regeneration occurs through her shard shunting in mass from a sort of “flesh dimension”. The regeneration applies to all forms of debilities inflicted upon Zinerva, including but not limited to regenerating nerve tissue damaged by neurotoxins, replacing enzymes that were irreversibly inhibited by nerve gas, or augmenting the clearance of metabolic waste accumulation caused by the lack of sleep. The regeneration can also be used to shunt in compounds that can be readily broken down for energy, such as fats, proteins, or sugars, allowing for immense endurance. Zinerva’s cores are evenly distributed throughout her body, allowing for regeneration from the largest scrap of flesh containing a core.
The second component of her power, which can be seen as a more directed expression of the first component of her power, is a level of control over her flesh and the form of the regenerated material. The flesh control is personal biokinesis within a sphere with a radius of twenty feet, the range increasing as her mass within the sphere increases, topping out at a certain limit.. When directing the form that the regenerated flesh takes, she can either focus on a concept or idea and have her power fill in the gaps in her knowledge, or she can direct the changes by herself in more detail. Power-guided improvements, however, are more vague and often less optimal than changes that she designs herself through constant experimentation—though they do sometimes reveal novel options, such as using halogens as an oxidizing agent for cellular respiration instead of oxygen. The more that she eats, and especially when she eats new things, the more power-provided options that are “unlocked” or revealed to her.
She can create either simple changes in freshly regenerated tissue, like tougher skin and sharper teeth, or more complex ones, such as creating insulation for her tissue in order to withstand electric shocks or growing functioning neural tissue. The former options are very similar to what Browbeat’s biokinesis can do as per WoG. The latter is what allowed her to discover that she could create simple organisms from her own flesh, imbuing muscle tissue with nerve nets and simple eyes that she could see through when they were in biokinesis range. She currently has a few forms and changes that she has practiced with and can create quickly, and is constantly experimenting with and prototyping new ones. Her minions are currently not very useful, having minimal intelligence and capability. However, they have managed to help her dig her little lair at the bottom of Standley Lake.
More details are under the “Improvements and Builds” hider after the following section.
Limitations: Zinerva can only create alterations that are at least somewhat biologically plausible. This means that she can’t create something like a bulletproof flesh tentacle that can be absorbed into her body as an organ and expressed whenever needed—at least not without large amounts of research, experimentation, and hoping her power provides her with something usable.
This segues into her next limitation, which is that she needs time to experiment in order to improve herself. Her power-provided changes, as previously stated, are not exactly optimal, and it’s up to Zinerva to do the research and the experimentation to create usable alterations.
As mentioned above, her biokinesis range is limited to twenty feet at her current mass.
While she may be a regen brute, she can also be killed if something destroys her wholesale. She will also die if she is completely incinerated or chemically dissolved. She’s far less squishy than a baseline human, thanks to her alterations, but she’s still somewhat constrained by biological limitations and will be seriously incapacitated until she regenerates if she, for example, gets hit by a car. Her strength, similarly, is greater than what a peak human athlete is capable of, but it’s nothing to write home about compared to other Brutes.
Her “minions”, as they are now, need to survive on their own until the time that they are needed. That means that they can easily be destroyed when not in her biokinesis range, and they need to be able to either hibernate for long periods of time or be fully equipped with the necessary organs and parts for survival. Most of them, as it happens, are in the form of eel-like creatures in Standley Lake. Currently, none are capable of long-term survival, let alone reproduction, and will die shortly after leaving Metanoia’s biokinesis range and act with minimal intelligence.
Improvements and Builds
General Improvements:
- Increased baseline resistance through improved resilience of flesh
- Increased baseline strength through strengthened and compact muscle fibers
- Increased baseline mental capability through thickened corpus callosum
- Increased durability and sharpness of teeth and fingernails
- Increased thickness of bones, especially skull, enough to deflect most calibers if hit at an angle and lower calibers head-on
- Additional redundant organs/Adapted organ functions, including altering of circulatory system and nervous system to be more shock-resistant and have alternative mechanisms of function
- Changed color and increased durability of hair
- Gills in neck and torso (lining ribcage) - released underwater as external gills
- Lateral line sensory system (analogous to that of fish) for sensing prey in water
- Electroreceptors (also analogous to that of fish) for sensing prey in water, range of 5ft
- Magnetoreceptor (Under development) -- only capable of vaguely sensing direction
- Increased capability of senses, including touch, sight, sound, smell, taste, proprioperception, and interoception
- Bones incorporated with mineral content and designs ripped off from nature, increasing resilience (Under development)
- Currently experimenting with increasing metal content of bones to provide resilience, still working out issues with excessive toxicity when in large amounts and strength-to-weight ratio
Calculations:
Here is a list of % mass each body part is in a human:
Head: 6.810% Trunk: 43.020% Arms: 9.43% Legs: 40.74 Total Percent: 100
Since her regeneration rate is simply 4% of her mass per second, it will always take her about 10 seconds to regenerate her legs in human form regardless of her size.
Prime Forms:
Requirements:
- prototyped and currently in a functional state
- expected to stay working in the field
Caveats:
None of the changes can truly be said to be combat-ready, as Metanoia has avoided conflict with capes and people in general.
All “time to change” times are rough estimates based off starting at her 50kg base form mass, with the times decreasing as she increases her mass.
Naiad
Description:
-sleeker form, suited for water, still mostly human
-thick tail emerging from base of spine that tapers into a flattened dart shape at end
--tail is scaled and spined, can lash to spear fish
--swimming mostly powered by tail, undulating motion
-increased flexibility
Development Notes:
-Closest to base form
-Most time spent in this form due to time spent in water
Time to change: ~10 seconds
-Mass of tail: ~20kg
Asuran
Description:
-Four additional arms emerging from shoulders
-practiced enough to be mostly coordinated
-allows for increased speed at tasks requiring manipulation with hands
-mostly superseded in favor of Nephilim for defending self
Development Notes:
-Development when extra hands needed for fine motor skills
-Branched into Nephilim form after starting from this
-Turns out it’s kind of hard to throw a punch with three arms at once
Time to change: ~3 seconds per set of arms
-Mass of arms approximately 5kg
Armored
Description:
-Carefully sculpted and filigreed armor, emphasizing sleekness and aiming to look delicate so the strength of the armor will be underestimated
-Comes with helmet, of course, with small flared wings or horns on the side valkyrie-style
-Usually a pure, milky white, sometimes decorated with feathers or streaks of pigment
-May come with weaponry
-Armor can be adapted to other forms, basic is just over humanoid form
-Can protect against bullets reliably, even up to potentially higher calibers (see real-life cases of even higher caliber bullets bouncing off larger bones in human bodies, the density of this bone is over twice that of normal human bone)
-Issue is the strength-to-weight ratio, a fully-armored form adds significant weight that will slow Zinerva down, even if she compensates by adding more muscle mass
-Can decrease thickness of armor for less protection but greater speed
-Can be armored in scale-like patterns over joints/tails to allow for flexibility
Development Notes:
-Still working on improving strength to weight ratio of armor, potentially by incorporating metals and other minerals
-Still working on designing the fashion/look of the armor and the colors, looking for sources of inspiration
Time to change: ~36 seconds
-This describes a basic armor of 2cm thickness of 5g/cm^3 density of compressed bone
-Average area of adult woman: 1.6m^2. 2cm layer of compressed bone at a density of 5g/cm^3 is a total volume of 32000 cubic centimeters for a total weight of 160000g or 160kg
-Time to change increases or decreases upon size of form and changes in armor density or body size
Naga
Description:
-Lower body of a snake, ivory scales cover skin to belly, slit pupil eyes, fangs
-Slightly larger than normal form, tail about 2.5ft in diameter at widest
-Not really useful for anything other than slightly increased speed in water and while burrowing
Development Notes:
-created on whim, mostly just experimentation with snake-like form to see if power would give anything juicy
-potentially a base form to alleviate square-cube law for Goliath-class forms
Time to change: ~18s
-Lower body + tail is about 50kg at base size
Nephilim
Description:
-Two pure white wings, sometimes dyed with color, usually armored with compressed bone
-Mostly for gliding, human body plan doesn’t work so well with flying
-Can be grown to immense sizes (8m+ wingspan) to allow for short bursts of flight
-Includes leg modifications to allow for running/jumping start
-Mostly useful as another limb to shield self with, deflect projectiles, hide self underneath to prepare other actions
-Can be grafted onto other forms
-More wings or larger wings can be grown with additional time, added colors to avoid association with Simurgh when multiple sets of wings are out
Development Notes:
-One of her first ideas, angelic wings/flying was an obvious fantasy
-Turns out increasing wing size also increases weight, increased weight means larger wings are needed, larger wings lead to increased weight, and so forth
--hard to outpace weight increasing faster than flying capability
Time to change: ~5s (Basic feathered wings) ~10s-40s+ (Light armor to fully armored)
-Base wings are easy, low mass
-Armor of compressed bone is heavy and takes similar time to armor herself, longer if the wings are larger and thus have a larger surface area
Dire Wolf
Description:
-Very big fluffy ivory-cream-white wolf-like creature with pale blue eyes
--size of a large elephant, around 6000kg, 11ft at the shoulder and 20ft long
--can grow larger, largest elephant on record at 11000kg and 13ft at the shoulder
-Large poofy tail, like a golden retriever
-Covered in bone armor pieces like plate armor
-Lots of armor underneath skin as well
-Internals are rearranged so that Metanoia is at the center of the creature
--Surrounded in a thick shell of bone
Development:
-Deliberately avoiding association with Crawler
--Was hexapodal earlier in development, changed back to quadrupedal upon learning that Crawler was hexapodal
-Things start breaking when moving fast when going above the 11000kg size
--Currently working on developing alternative forms that can withstand the stresses of sprinting and jumping while being heavier than this form
Time to change: ~120-135 seconds
-Two minutes needed to reach 6000kg
-15 more seconds needed to reach 11000kg
Tentacles
Description:
-Thick tentacles covered in overlapping white dense bone armor scales
-Each has up to 300kg of lifting capacity, increasing with size
-based off elephant trunks
Development:
-Inspired by need for developing limbs that aren’t as constrained as human limbs
-Great for digging into lakebeds
-Coloration and form, once again, deliberately avoiding association with Crawler
Time to change: ~10-30s per tentacle and faster after the first
-Requires increase in base form size to utilize multiple tentacles
-Each tentacle in base form weighs 10kg, increases up to 140kg and 7ft long (size of elephant trunk)
-Can grow larger but more unwieldy and untested
Arcology
Description:
-Full defensive mode, almost completely immobile
-Consists of living densely compressed bone that adds onto itself in successive layers
--Metanoia is like a onion: she has many layers
-Will constantly grow larger as Metanoia adds onto it over time
-Due to the square cube law, the surface area of the defensive structure will grow more slowly than the mass/volume of the structure
-Default color is ivory, color may be added as layers are grown to display messages or indicate friendliness
-Can project objects from the surface, grow armaments on the surface
Development:
-Cleanup is a hassle
--Lots of pyramidal bone-shaped objects buried in Standley Lake’s lakebed
Time to change: Variable
-Metanoia has never allowed this to grow too large after realizing she’d have to clean up after herself
Form of a Cat! (and other animals)
Description:
Metanoia, briefly, has experimented with turning her body into shapes of other animals. If the shape is unpracticed, it’s a bit...horrific, as her power doesn’t help her much in constructing an animal shape that actually looks like the animal.
So far, she’s got a dog and a cat form down passably.
Development:
Metanoia has always liked cats.
Time to change: Variable
-Depends on mass of the animal in question
-Requires Metanoia to shed her excess mass if going to a smaller size, which can leave obvious bits of flesh behind unless she cleans up after herself
Developing Forms
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Metanoia is still working on these, and thus these forms will likely not see the light of day unless specific or dire circumstances occur.
Roc (aka literally a bird)
Description:
-Form of a giant white raven
-Literally just a giant birb
-Can be scaled to smaller sizes to be a more normal-sized birb
-Flies at normal bird speeds
-Can be used to deliver payloads
--E.g. drop compressed bone kinetic projectiles (bone darts), poison sacs, dust
Development:
-Still need to work out...actually flying
-Turns out learning to fly without actually being bird is a hard
-Currently only capable of gliding, then flapping
--Will quickly spiral and crash
-Power helps but still hard to have form mimic a bird correctly
--Esp because have to adjust anatomy as size increases
Time to Change: ~5s - 25s+
-Refer to A. Magnificens for a real-world example
-Can easily reach 6m+ wingspan, ~70kg(154lbs)
-Can also scale to smaller sizes
Quetzalcoatlus
Description:
-Based off largest-known flying animal of all time
-Weight: ~200-250kg (440-550lb) Wingspan: ~11m
-Theoretically capable of bursts of powered flight and gliding
-Enormous deadly beak
-Also adapted to terrestrial locomotion
Development:
-Literally everything still unfinished
-Nowhere to practice without being discovered
-Side note: this form doesn’t swim very well
-Issues with not knowing how it was actually built since there’s only a fossil record to go off of
-Can currently produce facsimile of form that doesn’t have flight capability
-Very clumsy with this atm
Time to change: ~40s?
-Likely longer due to unfamiliarity with form
Goliath-Naga
Description:
-Theoretically titanosaur-size animals are possible, a la argentinosaurus (80 tons)
-But very slow and joints prone to collapse past certain sizes
-Elephants can sprint at 15mph+, those big dinosaurs moved at maybe 5mph
-Overall, flesh holds up poorly under square-cube law
-Strength increase versus time spend shifting is not efficient
-At a certain point the “strength increase” is just having more mass to throw around
--Instead it would be better to, for example, make tons of tentacles
-Attempt to remedy this issue with inefficient giant forms by imitating snake, might help by allowing body to be supported against the ground
--Would be able to snap tail like whip
-This is mostly a theoretical exercise to see if power gives any goodies for trying it
--little use in combat or anything, really, at the moment
Development:
-Most success in water so far
-Still harder to support self on land
Time to change: ~132s+
-Greater than 10000kg in mass
Holy fuck, there’s an Endbringer in my city
Description:
This form consists of multiple parts.
- A large mounted steed to serve as a wall of flesh to soak damage and regenerate from, this is also the main source of increased biokinetic range and allows her to safely participate from a distance. Takes Dire Wolf form.
- Humanoid form that rides the steed, provides a “human” presence and small mobile form to detach as needed. Nephilim form, to allow for gliding off the steed, plus other additions as necessary.
- Masses of smaller, mobile forms equipped with biological weaponry to harry the Endbringer, provide search and rescue, and generally support other capes as needed
The smaller mobile forms aren’t autonomous, so Metanoia needs to add brains to each one and take control herself, as otherwise her multitasking ability isn’t up to controlling dozens of minions through biokinesis at once. Metanoia’s core will be in the Dire Wolf.
Development notes:
This is under heavy development, as working on this requires a significant time investment of generating and sculpting large amounts of flesh. For the foreseeable future, the greatest benefit of this form is survivability and the ability to contribute to something like an Endbringer fight while giving Metanoia a chance to survive. Otherwise, it doesn’t really increase her combat effectiveness, and is much too resource-intensive to upkeep and use otherwise.
Emergency Stash
At the bottom of Standley Lake resides slowly accumulating masses of flesh. All are composed of quiescent cells, each a different form of “flesh suit” that Zinerva can integrate herself with. All must be tended to and have their nutrients replenished every few weeks.
Effectively, this serves as an emergency stash of pre-crafted material that Metanoia can access if she can get to her lake. There’s a smaller collection at her apartment, mostly consisting of things such as armored flesh and less wholesale creations—there’s not nearly as much space in there as she has at the lake.
Other things are stashed as well, listed in subsections under Armaments.
Therapeutic Uses
While Metanoia cannot directly heal people, she can alter her blood basically be equivalent of O- blood, allowing her to be a universal blood donor.
Currently, she’s working on creating organs, muscle tissue, and other miscellaneous body parts that can be implanted into other humans. By stripping her tissue of surface molecules such as major histocompatibility complexes (MHC), she can create transplantable tissue that has a much lower chance of being rejected from the host. Of course, she lacks human subjects to test this on, so this is mostly a power exercise at the moment.
Armaments
General Description:
These are practiced, all-purpose changes utilized for defensive (and sometimes utility) purposes.
Electrical Insulation
-Response to electrical shock, creates insulating layer around the origin of the shock and attempts to mitigate the effects of the shock to facilitate faster regeneration and repair
-includes some level of heat resistance due to possible electrical burns
Burn Resistance
-Reflexively create heat-redistributing and heat-absorbing chemicals to protect self from burns
-Eventually creates layers of material in body that act as heat sinks and can be ejected after absorbing heat
Poisons/Venom Resistance
-If possible, the foreign material is immediately removed from the body through physical means by sectioning off the tissue and removing it
-If not possible, tissue is contained and the poisons are neutralized with heat-producing chemical reactions
-All circulation to and from the area is immediately shut down
Emergency Armor
-Simply sheathes self and reinforces organs with modified compressed bone-like structures
-Will gradually sheathe entire body in armored plates
-Sheathes head first
-Can be prepped for by preparing plates unnoticeably underneath the skin
-Basically a less structured version of the “Armored” Prime Form.
Bombardier Adaptation
-Mimics bombardier beetle’s chemical reactions
-Very exothermic reaction, releases sprays of boiling liquid
-Also an irritant aside from the heat
-Consists of glands under skin, sprays liquid from pressure and also muscle contraction
Projectiles
-Combination of physical mechanisms and buildup of pressure
-Releases either shards or needles of dense compressed bone or tiny irritating buffs of sharp hairs/inhalable bone powder
-Loud shattering and popping noises when mechanism is activated
-Bone shards are limited in speed due to material limitations, at most will penetrate a few inches into unprotected flesh
-Therefore this is released in shotgun-like spreads to maximize chances of hitting and inducing distraction to allow for escape
Scream
-Alteration to lung capacity, vocal chords
-Create modifications to allow for circular breathing, resulting in unending scream
-Can’t really damage hearing with this, mostly for shock and distraction
-High-pitched screaming that doesn’t stop
Construction
-Creating shaped objects out of compressed modified bone and sometimes laced with metal and/or minerals grown in certain ways
-Mostly just used to create stashes of potentially useful objects
-Also used for the novelty and fun of practicing power control and sculpting
-Spears, swords, lances, and fantasy exotic weapons made of compressed bone of various sizes are in storage at bottom of Standley Lake or at Metanoia’s apartment
-Other equipment or ornaments are stashed there too, including a pretty crown of bone that turned out better than expected
-Chains, necklaces, rings, bracelets, armbands, hair ornaments
-Originally there was a human skeleton, but that was removed on the off chance someone found it and assumed the worst
-Sometimes decorated with feathers or other pigmented tissue
Booby Traps
-Metanoia’s homes are filled with quiescent cells controlling payloads that contain noxious fumes, corrosive liquids, explosive structures, etc.
-Can be set off to discourage intruders and to attack from unconventional angles
-Also can contain useable flesh (muscle fibers, mostly) to strike with
-These booby traps also need to be refreshed every few weeks or they will starve
Food and Water
Metanoia simply generates flavorless, if a bit salty, packages of food and water. Water is created through generating a substance similar to her own tears and filtering the liquid with kidney-like structures. The food is a mostly flavorless combination of muscle tissue and fats, though she can also produce sugars on-demand. She doesn’t need this ability, as she can directly shunt mass into her own tissues, but it’s helpful for feeding comrades and testing the digestive systems that she creates.
Decapitation Survival
-For use in situations where decapitation and then subsequent destruction of the body is, for some reason, a concern
-Modification of head to compress brain and add in energy reserves and a miniature circulatory system, basically a self-sustaining head
AVOIDING DEATH
-One of Metanoia’s last resorts
-When it seems like she might die, she develops structures under high tension and pressurized sacs in her body, then detonates
-This ensures that her flesh and her cores fly as far away as possible, potentially making the enemy unable to destroy all the pieces and thus giving Metanoia a chance at survival
-Also handily imitates a last-ditch attempt to take out the attacker with a violent death
-Said pieces of flesh may grow wings and attempt to fly away to further distraction, like lizard tails moving after being torn off
DO NOT USE (unless things are seriously borked)
Sins of Thy Children
Using something similar to Projectiles or Bombardier for distraction, Metanoia also includes bits of her own flesh in the payload, spraying down an area with “seeds”. Said seeds will either grow into their target, form into caltrops, release noxious sulfuric fumes, or otherwise provide area denial. They can also be in the form of pods with small hooks that latch onto people or things and remain quiescent for later activation by Metanoia when they re-enter her range. Effectively, they can serve as long-term threats in areas where Metanoia has been and as starting points for her to use her power through to attack from unconventional angles.
Birds of Feather
Metanoia violently launches bird-shaped projectiles at a target. The projectiles are guided in Metanoia’s range and either explode into fragments upon hitting the target or immediately attach and begin burrowing. If the targets are within Metanoia’s range, the birds begin disabling limbs and performing other nonlethal actions as first resort, otherwise they mindlessly attack the target with rhythmic muscle contractions. Within Metanoia’s range, they can also grow bone into targets or release specific compounds. They can also carry corrosive, explosive, irritating, or obscuring payloads.
Plague
Though Metanoia is limited to mostly mammalian physiology, she can still work on miniaturizing her creations and packing them into smaller forms. Plague is simply the logical conclusion to this development. She spawns thousands of tiny flesh-creatures that are essentially just birds with crunchy exteriors and directs them to attack and harry foes while simultaneously using them as vectors to grow mass from and increase her own mass. Plague is far more cost-efficient than producing minions such as life-sized birds, rats or rhinos, and is thus Metanoia’s last resort when she is willing to sacrifice her public image.
Autonomy
Though this isn’t quite possible yet, Metanoia has put some time into developing the ability for her creations to be fully autonomous. This would allow them to harvest nutrients and perform tasks outside of Metanoia’s biokinesis range, technically increasing her capabilities.
Unfortunately, Metanoia is also aware that this would cause people to draw comparisons between her and people like Nilbog, and thus is unwilling to use this unless using it would somehow make the difference between life and death.
Practically, this still has a lot of issues that Metanoia hasn’t solved yet, and her power is only feeding her dribbles of useable information. Nerve nets are too simple for complex behavior and Metanoia hasn’t managed to make more complex nervous systems fully autonomous yet. Creating organ systems from scratch is similarly hard, and her created organisms simply break down and die outside of her range. Giving the organisms the necessary instincts to survive and grow is even harder.
There is an easy solution, of course. Metanoia could simply grow another human...but she isn’t willing to go that far yet, nor is she sure that such a thing would even work at all.
Metastasize
This is Metanoia’s “the world is ending” option, where she leverages her biokinesis, changer abilities, and regeneration to their fullest extent. She ramps up her regeneration to reach her maximum regeneration rate as quickly as possible while spreading herself across the land, into the earth, and throughout the air. Burrowing forms begin tunneling, her body splats across the ground in an ameboid-like form, and she continually releases flying forms and dust made of flesh wrapped in hardened shells to saturate the air. As this occurs, her mass increase increases her biokinetic range, allowing her to launch pieces of her flesh further away from herself while also maintaining her control over them.
Assuming preparations have already been completed by then, Metanoia will give her flesh the capability to obtain energy chemotrophically, digesting inorganic and organic compounds to allow her flesh to grow and spread without having to manually grow them through utilizing her regeneration’s mass-shunting. When there is sufficient surface area, Metanoia will focus on consuming plants in order to harvest their chloroplasts in a manner similar to Elysia chlorotica, a sea slug, and use the chloroplasts to accumulate greater amounts of energy and nutrients. In addition, a larger surface area also allows for using the sun to heat the flesh instead of having to expend additional energy to keep the flesh warm to have it continue to grow at optimal rates.
The goal of this is to eventually saturate the land, earth, and sky with Metanoia’s flesh, giving her increased survivability and area control in order to protect herself. Metanoia will also constantly produce autonomous minions that attack on sight and perform target recognition through simple nerve nets and pheromone identification.
In the best case scenario, Metanoia will attempt to spread into large bodies of water, as she’s not only accustomed to growing in water but also because the water is far better at supporting large masses of flesh that would otherwise crush themselves under their own weight on land.
Equipment: Burner phone, sunglasses, equipment made of bone, premade changes lurking under her skin
