Gale froze at the voice, already they were discovered! But it was familiar in a way that all of the residents of the village were, a kind of accent that marked them all even if the sound of their voice wasn't well known. He spun to face the entrance, looking up from the satchel stuffed with a change of women's clothes, a few more papers, and a 100 year old map, he spotted the bright red hair of the shy girl (or he assumed she was shy by the fact they'd never spoken) that he'd noticed around the village a time or two. It was hard not to with hair like hers. Something about her was just so different to everyone else he couldn't help but notice her, even if his interests did lie elsewhere.
He struggled for a moment to remember her name, henrecalled it being just as unique as the girl herself... "Zyloria?" He questioned hesitantly, glancing around at all the dragon eggs and hungry hatchlings. Damn, well now she has to come with us! There was no way they were going through all the trouble of disappearing only to leave a witness behind who could spill everything- and there was no way they could cover this up and hide it from her, she was now a witness.
But Gale was not at all eager to become a kidnapper, so he thought maybe he should try to convince her first. "Uh- hey?" he tried not to look alarmed, hoping a calm conversation, as if nothing was wrong, would make her more agreeable. He only suceeded in looking very alarmed and a small bit scared. The fear was mostly from the dragon in his head who turned out to be a massive scared cat and was hiding behind another of the eggs.
Vin sighed frustratedly, brushing her hair from her face again. How did girls manage having their hair so long all the time? She was all but napping in the tiny little diner on the corner, barely moving at all, and yet her hair seemed to be pulled by a magnetic force into her mouth. It was maddening.
She wanted to be a boy again, but that would require finding a quiet place with no onlookers where she could strip, change form, and then redress in boy clothes. Her hair was aggravating, but the hassle of finding the energy to pull off that kind of transformation was more so.
So Vin would continue to be a girl. For now.
She scraped another loose strand of hair from her mouth and sat up, doing the best she could to straighten her bed head. She'd gotten here in the early morning, paying for breakfast and a mug of coffee, and then promptly put her head down to rest her eyes for a minute. She'd been dozing ever since, and the diner staff had apparently been distracted enough to let her.
She rubbed her eyes, feeling them water as they were assaulted with sudden sunlight. A great yawn stretched her lips, and she stretched tiredly. She subtley checked how she smelled, deciding that while it wasn't anything nice it also wasn't bad. Yet. She'd need a shower soon. Looking in the reflective napkin holder, she also decided she needed to wash her face. The make up, which had been terribly hard to pull off with any sort of skill, had smudged, and to be honest she didn't feel like reapplying it.
With another put upon sigh she stood and made her way to the bathroom, at the last second spinning on her heel to go through the women's door opposite the men's one. No one was in, and she quickly washed her face and hands, deciding to skip the hair for now, as she wanted to take a shower soon and could wash it then. She'd relieved her bladder before her impromptu nap, but apparently girls were justified when complaining about going to the bathroom all the time, because despite not having consumed anything since the last time, she had to go again.
She felt cleaner after washer her hands and face a second time, more refreshed and awake. She plopped down in her old seat and made a motion to one of the waitresses, ordering lunch. Just a burger and fries was fine with her, a can of cola to date her thirst and a milkshake for later.
Afterwards, she washed her hands and face again. Just because.
She might have turned into a bit of a neat freak recently, constantly washing her hands and face and taking a shower at every available opportunity. It made her feel better when she picked up greasy food or sat on dirty stairways that she would be clean later. It was perhaps a coping mechanism to her sudden homelessness.
Just as she left the diner she became aware of a commotion occurring down the street. Something was burning, and the police were showing up. Confident she wouldn't be recognized as a girl, and if she was quick the fire wouldn't hurt her, Vin decided to hang around and see what was happening.
She darted across the street and ducked into an alley. She began climbing a fire escape and hurriedly reached the top, climbing onto the roof and jogging quickly to the other side so she could look down on the scene. She was behind the man, someone like herself with powers, and he was slinging fireballs at the police that were crowding him.
She noticed one of his blast strike a duo that weren't in uniform, the two boys falling back at the onslaught. Or one of them did, the other shrugged it off and made to move after the pyro.
Distracted by the burned guy and the other one leaving him behind, Vin hadn't noticed a new person appear until they tackled the fire-slinger. "What an idiot," she muttered aloud, shocked at the display. The guy was going to get his face burnt off. And that's my cue, now that things were on the verge of getting ugly, Vin decided now was a good as time as any to make a hasty retreat.
Or that was her decision until she saw the boy who got left behind by his friend. He was kinda hot, and burn scars weren't attractive... choice made, she went back down the fire escape and circled the building to make it to the blond's side. She frowned down at him, unable to believe she'd decided to get involved- and because of such shallow reasoning as he was hot!
Up close now, she decided she'd been right about that at least, he was a looker.
But was he worth it?
"You alright?" She asked after a second of staring down at him indecisively. Maybe she wouldn't need to use her powers? The other one had brushed off the fire like it was nothing, maybe this one could heal too? But what if it scarred? Her vanity suddenly reared its head and she was not happy about dirtying a pretty thing, even by inaction.
She'd give him a chance, if he was nice and couldn't heal himself, then she'd heal him and that'd be that. If he was rude and couldn't heal himself... well that was expected, so she'd probably still heal him. If he could heal himself though, well she was out of there. She'd spent too long in these parts anyway, she'd left on a mission to go to Canada, yet what should have been a rather short trip had turned into a slow meander around the States.
I'll post tomorrow, if Gisk hasn't answered yet I'll just go with the assumption that Alph and De hit the road before Zy showed up. It makes things faster that way. :)
Name: 현민호 (Hyeon Min-ho), Vinicius "Vini" Zairy Montes
"Vin" and "Vini"
Appearance: Unreliable.
* Vini and Vin are the same person, simply the male and female appearance's that Vini defaults to when taking other forms. He still enjoys creating random appearances to take, these two are simply the ones he uses most often and views as his new natural look. The appearance he had before gaining his powers has been put out of his mind and he will likely never take his birth form again.
Vini is fairly tall and well built, with light skin and light orange eyes. He had dark hair and only shows a few signs of his half-Korean heritage, appearing almost 1/4th or less Korean instead of the half he truly is. Similarly there is almost no sign of his father's Latino blood. ~
Vin is a bit shorter than Vini, with pale skin and dark green eyes. She has soft, long dark hair and looks more dominantly Korean than Vini. She too shows little sign of her father's Latino heritage.
Age: Unreliable. Naturally and dominantly 17.
Sex: Unreliable. Naturally and dominantly male.
Infection Type: Empowered
Powers:
Organic Manipulation; Vin is able to understand how living things work and alter them at a basic level. So far he is only capable of manipulating his own human appearance and making slight changes to others'. While he can change his own gender, skin color, height, weight, and even health, he can only make skin deep changes or minute internal alterations to other Humans. His effect on plants is nothing, and his effect on animals is also only skin deep, if there is any effect at all.
In time he will gain a mastery of the ability and become capable of altering all living matter. He will never be able to create or destroy matter, however living things are delicate and easily killed. It would not take much to intentionally or accidentally snuff out a life or disable a being from the capability of survival. All living things require certain things to function and any mistake while altering a being could cause serious problems. The ability to understand how a living thing works offsets this downside somewhat, but a lack of focus or not having the energy needed to make the changes desired leaves no small risk. ~
Energy Manipulation; absorbing energy and changing it into different types is a useful gift. He uses it to create fire and electricity as well as a source of fuel for his body. The ability tires quickly however, and the amount of energy he can hold in his body is limited. He also does not have a very large range of control, needing physical contact to absorb energy and only able to manipulate the energy a short distance from his skin. Already this has resulted in burns and shocks around his hands.
Eventually his field of control will expand, allowing him to manipulate energy from a distance and store more within himself. His own body requires large amounts of energy to function, much more than another Human or even an empowered one, and as such a lot of the energy he absorbs is turned to keeping himself alive. He is also susceptible to damage by the energy he manipulates; burning and electrocution especially, but also radiation as well. Storing more energy than his body can hold will result in literally burning up his own body. ~
Psychic Field: Vini's mind emits a psychic field, allowing him to interact with other minds around him. Influencing actions, reading thoughts, and telepathic communication are a few of the capabilities. Already limits have been found in that it takes immense concentration to focus on any one mind, and so far only cats have answered his mental suggestions. The thoughts of animals are incomprehensible to him, and while he feels something from plants, they aren't at all categorizable as thoughts. Regardless of language, Human thoughts make sense to him.
As his power grows his field of control will expand and he will be able to more accurately read and influence minds at further distances with less need to concentrate. He will not be able to mind-control a sentient being or any creature with significant willpower.
Personality: Vini has long been frustrated with his life, holding himself to high standards he had no way of reaching and finding the world baring sharp teeth at every turn. He wanted the world to be good to him, but it wouldn't even settle on fair, instead he found life and people to be cruel, and so he started fighting back. Some of his former gentler attributes remain, such as the urge to offer kindness and friendship to any and all, but they are buried beneath a heart of acid. He approaches others with caution and prepares for the worst from their interactions. He doesn't allow anything they say to hurt him, because he knows he is carved from marble; solid as stone and better than any of the pebbles fighting at his feet.
Bio: Vini's mother was a Korean woman who loved to travel. She met his father in Sao Paulo, Brazil and the two traveled for a few years, in Frankfurt, Germany they discovered she was pregnant. She was adamant she wasn't done seeing the world and refused to settle down. On a small trip to Chile after returning home to meet his family, Vini was born. A year later they moved from Chile to America, and the year following that his mother and her unborn daughter died in childbirth. By that time they were living in LA and were barely able to make ends meet, having spent too much of their money traveling and his father never finished his education. However his father refused to move to a less costly city, claiming LA was his mother's favourite place. Three years later they moved from California to a small town in Oregon.
Vini had two names, using his Korean one at home with his father, who was confusingly Brazilian and thus spoke Portuguese, but had learned some Korean from his now deceased wife, and his more European name at school with his friends. He had many friends at first, carrying a sense of loneliness with him at how empty and quiet his home was, and he was desperate to have as many companions as possible. He found the other children to be cruel though, and many of his friends bullied his other friends, or said horrible things about each other. Vini often refused to get caught up in the feuds though, which alienated both sides. Near the end of his stay in Oregon he only had a handful of friends of a like mind who disliked getting involved.
He left them behind when he and his father moved across the country to live in North Carolina, for seemingly no reason. If there ever was a reason, Vini never discovered it. Once more he started making friends with as many people as would have him, but as he discovered they too were cruel and hateful towards each other, Vini stuck to his teammates on the swim team instead. They could usually be counted on to place nice with everyone, but even they had their spats with this and that student. Vini found himself ignoring their flaws just so he could justify them to his too-high standards and maintain their friendship.
Just before he gained his powers, Vini found himself in a situation he couldn't ignore. He'd gotten a girlfriend the year before, but things had ended abruptly when she moved to Virginia. There were occasional other girls who caught his eye, but just as frequently there were boys. When one came to him with an offer of a date, he hesitantly accepted, already knowing that if it got out it wouldn't be pretty. Of course, it immediately got out because the boy who asked him out had done it as a joke and immediately began telling others. The swim team, his only collection of real friends, did not approve.
Their actions hardened his heart, and he finally accepted that the world and everyone in it were flawed. Everyone except himself, because he had tried to be friendly, to be kind, to have an open mind and be respectful and a thousand other good things to so many bad people, but even the nicest of those people were bad and hateful. None of them were good enough to be his friend, they were unworthy of his kindness. So despite how wrong it felt to mirror their cruelty, Vini did so anyway, becoming the exact kind of person he once hated.
At the first sign of fever, he leapt at the chance to disappear for a few days. He went home and locked himself away in his room. The sicker he got, the more frustrated he became with his situation. He'd seen those people so full of hate be nice to others, they didn't hate everyone, so what was different that made those people so likeable?
The answer was obvious; they were attractive, they were fit and healthy, they could match any style and look good in any clothes. He needed that.
Gaining an ability like the first one he received was undoubtedly unlikely, certainly under the circumstances of just wanting it, but the virus works in strange ways, and he was still emotionally fragile from the betrayal of his friends and the inevitable crumbling of the relationship with his father. He needed to be somebody else, and he needed to be healthy and attractive to have a chance at ever getting to the place he'd always wanted to be. The stress was just enough to work for him.
Of course once his body started changing, becomingly nearly unrecognizable to even himself, he knew that he'd regret getting what he'd wished for. His father would never recognize him, no one would- so he was immensely relieved when his appearance returned to normal moments later. He wrestled with the gift for a while, learning how it worked, but then he collapsed.
He still looked like himself luckily, his skin was simply clearer, a few shades paler, and his eyes a lighter shade of brown. His father found him soon after, investigating the sound of hearing his body hit the bathroom floor. He was rushed to the hospital, his fever through the roof and his pulse thready. They found he was dehydrated and utterly exhausted, in the few moments of wakefulness he had in the hospital he realized he didn't even have the energy to breath.
This his second power came to him, as a direct response of being overtaxed by his first power. He began absorbing energy directly from the machines keeping him alive, and from the air around him. Gradually he began to recover, absorbing more and more energy to sate himself. The hospital had several power problems in the following days, and three days after arriving his fever still hadn't gone down and he only had short bouts of wakefulness. During one of those bouts he asked the nurse where his father was and she explained to him one of the kids from school had passed his room and mocked his preferences. His father left the hospital after overhearing and interrogating the kid.
Vini knew his father well, so he was well aware of how angry his father would be at learning something like this about his only son. When the man returned, he refused to talk to him for a long time, so long Vini was left desperately wondering what the man was thinking and beginning to seriously consider exactly what his father might do when they were alone. Then his third and final power made an appearance, and Vini saw exactly what his father was thinking.
That night he fled the hospital looking like someone else. Two days later his fever ended and he felt mostly normal. He'd been on the move ever since, heading north to Canada.
Equipment: Stolen clothes, stolen bag, handful of stolen cash.
@TheUnknowable I was about halfway done with the character when I decided Mako was who I wanted, the orange eyes made me solidly of the opinion that he was perfect for the job because it's exactly the kind of small but unique alteration of appearance he would have made. Also he kinda hella cute??? I tried to find a realistic depiction of him, didn't even think of cosplayers, and then I found the picture of both the Asami and Mako cosplayers and I was like YES! They were rad cute and what shapeshifter wouldn't turn into the opposite gender? I have never had any real desire to become a girl, not permanently in a way a transgender does, but I've wondered what it'd be like, and if I had the ability I would be flipping back and forth all the time.
@Awesomoman64 Depends on which way they go. She's going to be thorough and investigate the burnt out bit of the forest in the south. If the boys go back the way they came, through the muddy north, they'll miss each other.
Name: 현민호 (Hyeon Min-ho), Vinicius "Vini" Zairy Montes
"Vin" and "Vini"
Appearance: Unreliable.
* Vini and Vin are the same person, simply the male and female appearance's that Vini defaults to when taking other forms. He still enjoys creating random appearances to take, these two are simply the ones he uses most often and views as his new natural look. The appearance he had before gaining his powers has been put out of his mind and he will likely never take his birth form again.
Vini is fairly tall and well built, with light skin and light orange eyes. He had dark hair and only shows a few signs of his half-Korean heritage, appearing almost 1/4th or less Korean instead of the half he truly is. Similarly there is almost no sign of his father's Latino blood. ~
Vin is a bit shorter than Vini, with pale skin and dark green eyes. She has soft, long dark hair and looks more dominantly Korean than Vini. She too shows little sign of her father's Latino heritage.
Age: Unreliable. Naturally and dominantly 17.
Sex: Unreliable. Naturally and dominantly male.
Infection Type: Empowered
Powers:
Organic Manipulation; Vin is able to understand how living things work and alter them at a basic level. So far he is only capable of manipulating his own human appearance and making slight changes to others'. While he can change his own gender, skin color, height, weight, and even health, he can only make skin deep changes or minute internal alterations to other Humans. His effect on plants is nothing, and his effect on animals is also only skin deep, if there is any effect at all.
In time he will gain a mastery of the ability and become capable of altering all living matter. He will never be able to create or destroy matter, however living things are delicate and easily killed. It would not take much to intentionally or accidentally snuff out a life or disable a being from the capability of survival. All living things require certain things to function and any mistake while altering a being could cause serious problems. The ability to understand how a living thing works offsets this downside somewhat, but a lack of focus or not having the energy needed to make the changes desired leaves no small risk. ~
Energy Manipulation; absorbing energy and changing it into different types is a useful gift. He uses it to create fire and electricity as well as a source of fuel for his body. The ability tires quickly however, and the amount of energy he can hold in his body is limited. He also does not have a very large range of control, needing physical contact to absorb energy and only able to manipulate the energy a short distance from his skin. Already this has resulted in burns and shocks around his hands.
Eventually his field of control will expand, allowing him to manipulate energy from a distance and store more within himself. His own body requires large amounts of energy to function, much more than another Human or even an empowered one, and as such a lot of the energy he absorbs is turned to keeping himself alive. He is also susceptible to damage by the energy he manipulates; burning and electrocution especially, but also radiation as well. Storing more energy than his body can hold will result in literally burning up his own body. ~
Psychic Field: Vini's mind emits a psychic field, allowing him to interact with other minds around him. Influencing actions, reading thoughts, and telepathic communication are a few of the capabilities. Already limits have been found in that it takes immense concentration to focus on any one mind, and so far only cats have answered his mental suggestions. The thoughts of animals are incomprehensible to him, and while he feels something from plants, they aren't at all categorizable as thoughts. Regardless of language, Human thoughts make sense to him.
As his power grows his field of control will expand and he will be able to more accurately read and influence minds at further distances with less need to concentrate. He will not be able to mind-control a sentient being or any creature with significant willpower.
Personality: Vini has long been frustrated with his life, holding himself to high standards he had no way of reaching and finding the world baring sharp teeth at every turn. He wanted the world to be good to him, but it wouldn't even settle on fair, instead he found life and people to be cruel, and so he started fighting back. Some of his former gentler attributes remain, such as the urge to offer kindness and friendship to any and all, but they are buried beneath a heart of acid. He approaches others with caution and prepares for the worst from their interactions. He doesn't allow anything they say to hurt him, because he knows he is carved from marble; solid as stone and better than any of the pebbles fighting at his feet.
Bio: Vini's mother was a Korean woman who loved to travel. She met his father in Sao Paulo, Brazil and the two traveled for a few years, in Frankfurt, Germany they discovered she was pregnant. She was adamant she wasn't done seeing the world and refused to settle down. On a small trip to Chile after returning home to meet his family, Vini was born. A year later they moved from Chile to America, and the year following that his mother and her unborn daughter died in childbirth. By that time they were living in LA and were barely able to make ends meet, having spent too much of their money traveling and his father never finished his education. However his father refused to move to a less costly city, claiming LA was his mother's favourite place. Three years later they moved from California to a small town in Oregon.
Vini had two names, using his Korean one at home with his father, who was confusingly Brazilian and thus spoke Portuguese, but had learned some Korean from his now deceased wife, and his more European name at school with his friends. He had many friends at first, carrying a sense of loneliness with him at how empty and quiet his home was, and he was desperate to have as many companions as possible. He found the other children to be cruel though, and many of his friends bullied his other friends, or said horrible things about each other. Vini often refused to get caught up in the feuds though, which alienated both sides. Near the end of his stay in Oregon he only had a handful of friends of a like mind who disliked getting involved.
He left them behind when he and his father moved across the country to live in North Carolina, for seemingly no reason. If there ever was a reason, Vini never discovered it. Once more he started making friends with as many people as would have him, but as he discovered they too were cruel and hateful towards each other, Vini stuck to his teammates on the swim team instead. They could usually be counted on to place nice with everyone, but even they had their spats with this and that student. Vini found himself ignoring their flaws just so he could justify them to his too-high standards and maintain their friendship.
Just before he gained his powers, Vini found himself in a situation he couldn't ignore. He'd gotten a girlfriend the year before, but things had ended abruptly when she moved to Virginia. There were occasional other girls who caught his eye, but just as frequently there were boys. When one came to him with an offer of a date, he hesitantly accepted, already knowing that if it got out it wouldn't be pretty. Of course, it immediately got out because the boy who asked him out had done it as a joke and immediately began telling others. The swim team, his only collection of real friends, did not approve.
Their actions hardened his heart, and he finally accepted that the world and everyone in it were flawed. Everyone except himself, because he had tried to be friendly, to be kind, to have an open mind and be respectful and a thousand other good things to so many bad people, but even the nicest of those people were bad and hateful. None of them were good enough to be his friend, they were unworthy of his kindness. So despite how wrong it felt to mirror their cruelty, Vini did so anyway, becoming the exact kind of person he once hated.
At the first sign of fever, he leapt at the chance to disappear for a few days. He went home and locked himself away in his room. The sicker he got, the more frustrated he became with his situation. He'd seen those people so full of hate be nice to others, they didn't hate everyone, so what was different that made those people so likeable?
The answer was obvious; they were attractive, they were fit and healthy, they could match any style and look good in any clothes. He needed that.
Gaining an ability like the first one he received was undoubtedly unlikely, certainly under the circumstances of just wanting it, but the virus works in strange ways, and he was still emotionally fragile from the betrayal of his friends and the inevitable crumbling of the relationship with his father. He needed to be somebody else, and he needed to be healthy and attractive to have a chance at ever getting to the place he'd always wanted to be. The stress was just enough to work for him.
Of course once his body started changing, becomingly nearly unrecognizable to even himself, he knew that he'd regret getting what he'd wished for. His father would never recognize him, no one would- so he was immensely relieved when his appearance returned to normal moments later. He wrestled with the gift for a while, learning how it worked, but then he collapsed.
He still looked like himself luckily, his skin was simply clearer, a few shades paler, and his eyes a lighter shade of brown. His father found him soon after, investigating the sound of hearing his body hit the bathroom floor. He was rushed to the hospital, his fever through the roof and his pulse thready. They found he was dehydrated and utterly exhausted, in the few moments of wakefulness he had in the hospital he realized he didn't even have the energy to breath.
This his second power came to him, as a direct response of being overtaxed by his first power. He began absorbing energy directly from the machines keeping him alive, and from the air around him. Gradually he began to recover, absorbing more and more energy to sate himself. The hospital had several power problems in the following days, and three days after arriving his fever still hadn't gone down and he only had short bouts of wakefulness. During one of those bouts he asked the nurse where his father was and she explained to him one of the kids from school had passed his room and mocked his preferences. His father left the hospital after overhearing and interrogating the kid.
Vini knew his father well, so he was well aware of how angry his father would be at learning something like this about his only son. When the man returned, he refused to talk to him for a long time, so long Vini was left desperately wondering what the man was thinking and beginning to seriously consider exactly what his father might do when they were alone. Then his third and final power made an appearance, and Vini saw exactly what his father was thinking.
That night he fled the hospital looking like someone else. Two days later his fever ended and he felt mostly normal. He'd been on the move ever since, heading north to Canada.
Equipment: Stolen clothes, stolen bag, handful of stolen cash.
Emma
Skai
