Detroit, Downtown, abandoned construction site 11:48pm, July 6th
The young man sneered, the cold evening breeze having stung his eyes a little. He reached up with thin, dusty fingers to wipe it away, but winced as a trace of the ruins lingered behind. Only the glow of a small trash fire illuminated the area around him, the disorientation making the shadows in the peripheral all the worst.
In theory he should have grown used to them over these last few days, but in practice it was painfully difficult.
This place was not his home after all, but it was his residence for now. A blasted ruin of human failing, an image of an image, a shell within a shell. Twenty stories worth of what-could-have-been, collapsed by debt to the point where only those judged could hope to stay, away from the eyes of any who would hurt them.
Mansa, can you hear them? whispered the spider, Here, in the darkness. Your hiding place has been disturbed.
"I told you not to call me that-"
One cannot deny one's truth. Your hands hold the balance of ruin and prosperity. You are the Mansa, you mus-.
His stomach grumbling caught the spider off-guard, "Finally," and turned his attention to more immediate matters. He reached into the bag he had with him, pulling out a small peanut bar. Its aging orange wrapper was pristine by comparison to even the air surrounding it. It wasn't much, but after the first couple of bites he tried to chew more slowly, to linger on it. The sweetness of the chocolate, the saltiness on his tongue.
As he chewed, focusing his mind on every aspect of its texture, its colour, even things as inane as the history of the brand or the specific ingredients. Anything to get away from the ramblings of that damn spider.
Or the past. Or the future...
"...or the present."
He sniffed, the peanut catching in his throat a little as his body quivered, the taunting demons ever just out of reach, lingering in the darkness. He felt the pain begin to leave his body, running down the sides of his face, the quivering changing to jolts, the unfinished candy falling from his fingers as he lent his face into his knees.
But hope would not vanish forever, as a small piece of paper drifted on the wind, and found its way to the edge of the light...
Sorry about my lack of activity guys, just caught up with the OOC section and need to catch up with the current IC situation as well.
Since my ideas for 'lone story arcs' for Everett seem to have been hijacked by my brain into becoming independent stories outside of the RP, I'm going to try and get involved with more collab stuff for Everett and have him involved in other player's story arcs, if they so wish.
Is there anyone in particular who would be interested in collabing, or any specific side plots that could work well if Everett was to show up and join?
I'm really sorry about this, but I think it's probably best for me to drop out of this. Every time I try to sit down and do a bobbling post I just get this big creative blank space and nothing really seems to be shifting it.
Well, I finally got out of hospital but have been reeling since I started suffering from a lot of the same symptoms again, so I've been feeling exhausted - mentally and physically - a lot of the time and have made little progress on my creative projects, Helium Frightful included.
I dunno how long it's gonna take me to recover from this and get back into the normal swing of things, honestly ):
My apologies for lack of posts, I have been extremely ill the last few days and am now in hospital expecting an operation soon. It's nothing dangerous, but I'm sure y'all can appreciate my creativity has taken something of a hit right now, dehydration and medication are a fun combination.
I will post once I'm back home with laptop access and feeling a little better. ^_^
Sorry about the lack of posting, I have caught up with what's going on but have been very I'll with severe stomach problems and currently stuck in hospital, so I haven't been in a very creative mindset :/
I will try to post in a few days time, assuming I have access to my my laptop and feel a little better.
Far from home, whispered the spider, none of the beds in this city are familiar, are they? Even after two months.
... How could he answer that? A simple 'no' wouldn't suffice.
"I could afford something better," he whispered back, and imperceptibly the golden spider shook its head.
Selfish stupidity is not your nature, Mansa. I know that. You know that.
Of course he nodded along, the darkness cool and relaxing. In the weeks since his escape to the Bronx, he'd been spending a lot of time sleeping, thinking. Lying low gave him that opportunity, at least, but the aching in his bones was continuous.
This particular apartment had been 'home' for five weeks now, and mainly he had been keeping an eye on the British news. His own headlines had dropped, of course, though the theories on conspiracy sites were rampant.
"Protests in Parliament, 2 dead." they read now, the latest in a more brutal crackdown.
"Metas are human too," read one of the protestor's signs in the video, a black clad police officer striking the woman almost as soon as she stepped forward.
"Was it right to escape?" he asked the spider, "Shouldn't I be there to help?"
Your path is your own, Mansa, but your purpose is clear. If the world's wounds are better healed here, that is your choice... and you cannot heal anything from within a prison cell.
A murmur, a gentle pain in his chest, and the silence of his dreams starts to give way to the sights and smells and noises of the big city - the universals of trash and smog and fast cars, of grey upon grey.
But right now your path is hunger for... food, correct? That sandwich place, uh...
"Lil Pickles,"
Yes, that one. We enjoyed that one, right?
"Right, yeah..."
He rose up, bed still unmade, and placed the thin spectacles onto his nose, the soft yellow metal narrowing into the ridges of his nose from a lifetime of short-sightedness. He dressed in familiar attire, the universal attire of a man blending in - old (but not filthy) jeans and red t-shirt, a cheap and padded dark blue coat, a simple blue cap on his head, the brim just long enough to obscure his eyes without seeming suspicious.
But as he made his way from the apartment, door locked tight behind him, unseen eyes turned to glance at the radio in their hands.
"Target is on the move. Appears to be heading for his usual spot."
"Good to hear, you know what to do."
...
Lil Pickles
A humble sandwich joint, little known to most save those on the local few blocks, Lil Pickles had become a popular hotspot for those at the bottom of the Bronx.
The slightly smudged glass door, covered in cheaply printed or decade old adverts gave way to the humble tinkle of a doorbell as Everett pushed it open. He got a few glances here or there from patrons who had been eating there for years, and the black haired cutie - Aiko? Hikari? he wondered - behind the counter looked up from her phone to give him a warm smile. Though, something was... off.
What is it?
But the unease quickly passed.
Her smile had quickly become a familiar comfort so far from home. It wasn't a forced smile, the fixed and practised smile of corporate staff, but the subtle and good-natured welcome of someone who genuinely liked to see people's faces, whether familiar or not.
"Hey, Eddie, how're ya? You want the usual?"
He couldn't help but nervously smile at her greeting. Sure enough, she'd remembered the name he'd given her and had already picked up on his tea drinking habits, but for the life of him he couldn't seem to remember the specifics of anything she gave him.
"Yeah, uh, yes please, chamomile and a cheese toastie-"
He caught himself mid-sentence, but too late all the same.
"-you mean a grilled cheese 'n' onions?" she smirked.
With silent resignation he just nodded, hands opened and palms against the counter as he took a seat by the bar. He reached into his wallet and pulled out a 10 dollar note - the usual for the usual.
"HEY BENNY," she shouted over her shoulder to the kitchen beyond, "GRILLED CHEESE AND ONIONS FOR EDDIE THE BRIT!"
"OKAY!" he shouted back.
He twiddled his thumbs, glancing over to the newspaper on the counter, and it occurred to him that it was a different sort of "bad news" to what he'd been reading online from British sources. Less "the government is turning into a dictatorship" and more "city life sucks and people are scared of metas; in related news, hell is still hot and pigs still don't fly".
"Sooo," she said, the familiar, comforting smell of cheap instant tea starting to waft as she poured in the water, "Still outta luck on the job front? 'Spensive and risky movin' so far with still nothin' for it."
He gave a small smile.
The irony kills me. I'm actually going to die.
"Well, you know. The land of opportunity, some times you've just got to go with it. Sometimes there's not much to stay for, you know? Double or nothing."
She nodded.
"Dad was just the same - there's a guts to it, I respect that."
What was her dad's name? She's told you before.
"But you know," she whispered, leaning in a little as she pushed the tea over to him, "I don't blame you."
Her voice was barely perceptible, and the hair on his back went dead straight.
"Your name isn't Eddie, is it? And I know why you've still got enough money to live here when you haven't had a job yet."
She backed off a little, smirking as he gave her the weakest, palest grin he could muster, his hunger suddenly replaced by a sinking feeling. This was further worsened when the guy next to him at the counter nudged up to him with the barrel of a handgun buried in his coat.
"You're really bad at keeping a low profile, you know that? Mansa, right?"
EDIT: Thanks to [@LegionX51] for recommendations regarding edits to the wider political and social context of Everett's situation
Character you have created: Everett Williams
Alias: Mansa
Speech Color: #9f7d2e - Gentle Gold
Character Alignment: Wishes to be a Hero; Much more prone to Walking the Line.
Identity: He tries to keep his real identity hidden, but was forced to flee the UK when exposed by the Metropolitan Police and DEMAR as part of a larger manhunt involving a string of murders in London that perfectly framed him as the main suspect. The one or two people he had told about his powers have since been taken into custody and their situation is unknown - he has no allies left.
Character Personality: A quiet and uncertain young man, Everett was determined in his school years to keep a low profile, knuckle down and study. He had few friends due to his anxiety and lack of conviction regarding what he wanted out of life in the long-term, in a world ruled by luck - after all, it seemed like those with all of the power had either been born into it, were lucky enough to receive it from circumstance and mystery, or had taken it from others by force and cruelty.
He is generally bad at maintaining eye contact and gets nervous in high pressure environments, but when taking on the persona of 'Mansa', he has found it easier to get 'into character' and reveals an inner confidence that tends to throw those who know him well off guard. He has his suspicions that the persona of 'Mansa' somehow links him to the Golden Spider from his dreams, and that leaves him nervous about the possibility that his confidence and cunning are not really 'his' - this, along with the constant fear of being killed, caught or being forced to his powers to harm others leaves him nervous and pessimistic about the future and his role in the world.
Uniform/costume: N/A; Everett did briefly consider the idea of trying to create his own costume based on sketches he'd drawn as a kid, but quickly realized that his powers were better used from a distance or while blending into a crowd.
In his daily life Everett has no particular 'style', but especially since being on the run he mainly just wears practical, cheap clothing - jeans, bland T-shirts or button-up shirts and simple padded coats or hoodies. When he can get away with it though, he prefers to wear tight, smart brown trousers and elegant, long-sleeved shirts, usually with flower or abstract patterns. When possible, he also wears thick or woolly gloves to limit his powers from accidentally triggering if he gets nervous.
Origin Info/Details: Born to Ghanian parents shortly after they moved to London, Everett often felt uncertain of his place in the world growing up. His parents loved him and his older brother Thursday a great deal, but there was a constant sense of being torn between two very different worlds. He seems to have faded into the background, especially when his younger brother was born and he was hit extremely hard with middle child syndrome.
Never-the-less, there was one small certainty throughout everything - the world was unfair, deeply so, and his family seemed to suffer the brunt of it. London - and the wider UK in general - had, for reasons not fully understood, relatively low numbers of active heroes relative to its population. In the wake of increasingly destructive meta activity abroad and a growing lack of confidence in the work of ordinary police, popular and political opinion had gradually been eroding their public support; when a series of attacks by the villain Scattershot left dozens dead in the London Underground, the camel's back was broken and the UK government rapidly passed through the creation of the Department for Metahuman Affairs and Relations, or DEMAR. Registration was mandatory, and metahuman activity without approval from DEMAR and its representatives was strictly illegal.
In the midst of this, Everett grew up increasingly pessimistic about the world, feeling he had to do something - perhaps through studying hard and getting a good education? Perhaps through politics? Perhaps through charity? - to make it better, but every system he turned to had inevitably failed the common people.
And then, when his family had hit rock bottom, he had a dream. A tiny golden spider, drifting in the darkness from a single golden strand.
The world is wounded, yes?
"Yes."
Then take the Light of the Earth, and bind those wounds.
He awoke to something powerful, deep within his bones. On some deep, instinctive level, he knew what the spider had given him - and when his thoughts turned out to be based in truth, that he now held a power able to hold the balance of prosperity and ruin with a snap of his fingers...
He knew that he had to do something. With such great power, there was now a great responsibility - to change the world forever.
Hero Type: Elemental/Mystic
Power Level: Usually an A, but Everett could potentially achieve B or even C level with sufficient preparation, support and set up.
Powers: Everett possesses something called the 'Light of the Earth', the ability to instantly turn any inorganic matter he wishes into gold with a snap of his fingers. This can theoretically work on objects of almost any size or complexity, though he's never tried anything larger than a full three piece suit or anything more complex than an iPhone. This is tremendously powerful, but abides by very specific limitations that he strictly cannot break, as follows: --- Line of Sight: Everett must be able to see the matter he is 'converting' clearly enough that he can perceive it as 'that thing' - this means his effective range is much greater so long as he wears his glasses, but it does not work through electronic devices. --- No Magic Mass for Me: The targets of Everett's power do not magically 'gain mass' - gold is a heavy metal with a high particle density to its atoms, so most materials and objects will essentially 'compress' as they are converted, the atoms quietly but suddenly 'melting together'. Thus, the vast majority of targets will quite literally shrink or even 'melt' as the individual chemical elements making up the target slowly shrink and push together into a single mass of gold. Perfect golden statues these are not. ----- Despite this change in atomic structure, there is no actual release of energy from such a change - as far as Everett or anyone else is aware, he doesn't have the power to create nuclear fission on a whim or to turn objects into miniature nuclear bombs. --- Snap of the Fingers: Everett must snap his fingers to trigger the ability - he's attempted to use his power without the finger snap, and consistently nothing happens. There's no specific pose or other action required mind you, but he usually likes to be dramatic about it when he can get away with it. And yes, this does mean he's basically powerless if his fingers or hands are broken. --- No Focus Necessary: Despite this, Everett doesn't need to actively 'concentrate' to use his power - so long as he's looking at something, he can snap his fingers to trigger it instantly. The problem is that without focusing on the 'target' in question, the effect will simply latch onto whatever 'target' he's dwelling on at the time - a lapse in judgement of this sort is the straw that broke the camel's back and led to him being tracked down by the UK authorities, forcing him on the run. ----- That said, concentration does also provide him greater control - with proper focus, he can 'delay' the effect, starting the process of turning something to gold on a sort of 'timer' where it slowly turns to gold from the outside in. The longest he was able to delay such a target was forty seconds before his concentration was broken by the arrival of police and the conversion immediately finished. --- Golden Retriever: Technically not a limitation but rather a passive secondary power that he gained simultaneously, he appears to be able to sense the presence of gold around him in a small area, about 20 feet at the furthest. This is described as a 'tingling' that rises up his limbs. The sensation is stronger towards gold that he himself has 'created', and the range extends as far as 50 feet at his last calculation.
As a secondary note, something Everett isn't yet certain of is if there is a way for him to reverse the transformation. A comment the golden spider made to him once ("One who changes the world can often change it back") has led him to believe that he could, but he's not yet been able to successfully do so.
Attributes (Select one at each category):
Height: 6"2. Weight: 81 kilos. Strength Level: Normal Human. Speed/Reaction Timing Level: Normal Human. Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: Normal Human. Agility: Normal Human. Intelligence: Slightly above average. Fighting Skill: Untrained. Resources: Minimal, but hypothetically could become Extreme given sufficient secrecy/protection and resources to work with.
Weaknesses: Primarily, his main weakness is that, without his power he's just a weedy, physically frail nerd caught between anxiety and a theoretical god-complex that worries those who know of him. Nothing about him is particularly noteworthy, and so if anything were to happen to his hands, or he was caught off guard?
Well, he wouldn't exactly last long.
Supporting Characters:IN PROGRESS
--- Thursday Williams: His older brother, a well-adjusted and law-abiding man who he used to confide in about everything. Thursday was ultimately the one who reported him after he accidentally killed a local business man. --- The Golden Spider: A mysterious entity that appeared in his dreams and seems to have given him his powers. It appears occasionally to offer cryptic advice, but he cannot seem to question its quiet confidence. He fears that the slight changes in his personality when he gets 'In-Character' as Mansa may actually be the influence or control of the Spider. --- Velu Anand: A successful business-man and old family friend with something of a rebellious streak from his younger days, he was disgusted at Jeremy's betrayal and has helped provide Everett safe and secret passage out of the UK. "Family first," he always says.
Face Claim: Lakeith Stanfield
Sample Post:
Deep beneath that vast steel cage, he could feel the lifeblood of the world, vast and alien and terrifying. His stomach struggled to rest, the world still spinning - it occurred to him that this was not technically the first time he'd been on a boat. Last time he'd journeyed across the world for a new home, he'd been a zygote, the barest trace of a nothing...
Would I be here if they'd stayed? Or would this... purpose, have only been stronger?
The troubles of Britain were his catalyst, after all. Would he still be the same person if they'd stayed? Would he still even be Everett? Or perhaps he would have been Saturday, just like his grandfather?
No fear, whispered the spider, his focus wandering, adrift in the twilight that surrounded every aspect of the voyage, No worries.
...
He was awoken from his hazy half dreams by a tap on his shoulder. The sound of the tense fingers surrounding and rippling the polyester of his coat was almost as noticeable to him as the firm but gentle grip.
"Everett, we are arriving soon. How are you?"
He smiled, a soft and distant smile as he turned to the last of those who could be called his allies, and the brown suitcase that he'd placed onto the ground. An old friend - the oldest.
"I'm... I'm okay. Just... tired. Thinking a lot. Thanks again for all of this though, Velu."
"Oh, no fear boy. You were always good, a good boy, and if Allu was here, I think he'd have been right alongside you. What's become of this country, between the criminals and the bobbies..."
The gentle crevices of Velu's face went taut as he spat on the ground, sneering at the spot just like he'd sneered at the TV the day Everett had come to him for help. Everett couldn't help but smile a little at that - to see the polite, well-mannered business man display his disgust so straight.
They stood in the soft darkness of the ship's hold for some time. Honestly, time had felt less and less meaningful a concept those last few days - what did it matter, when the chase was eternal?
Velu's brown eyes went wide, and he patted down the pockets of his well-tailored brown suit. Then, with a slight sigh of relief, he reached into the inner pocket and pulled out a small silver stop-watch. He held Everett's hand tightly, resting it in his palm.
"Take it, as a memento. The time is always changing, always ticking, but it never stops going. That watch has been with me for four generations, and well... you take it now, okay?"
Everett stepped back, his feet suddenly uneasy.
"But, you... you've already done so much, I don't, I-"
"Just take it, alright? I only ask that you don't turn it into gold. The memories of my family are more precious than that. It's never needed to be retuned, and if you break that record..."
He smiled again, though something in his eyes - the shimmer and echo of a tear? - told Everett he was serious.
"... then my ghost, my father's ghost, and my grandfather's ghost will haunt you from across the Atlantic. You'll never be able to escape!"
Everett nodded, wiping his brow with his right hand in as exaggerated way as he could muster, given the circumstances.
"The ghosts of Anand. Like... the saddest version of a Christmas Carol ever, with curry?"
"Hah, sad? Angry, more like! And you'd wish my wife's cooking was there!"
They laughed, and cried, and hugged - for the first time in a long, long while, Everett didn't feel so awkward about it.
...
An hour later, and Everett walked into the early evening darkness, the 'helper' Velu had hired to get him away from the dockyards. The big apple, the so-called greatest city on Earth, awaited him. He had two thousand dollars, the clothes on his back, a suitcase full of memories.
On the horizon behind him, there stood a flame of liberty, a bearer of justice. In this world of chaos and lies, where everything could change like a snap of the fingers...
Before we accept your CS's, could you fix these minor points.
@Eventua: -Could you elaborate/specify what Mansa can turn to gold? -We feel that you should remove his ability to use his powers on individuals who are only in his line of sight if he is using modern technology (e.g. computer screen, monitors, cameras, etc.).
Oooh, of course! I have made the requested changes as well as the stuff brought up on Discord, but have also added a possible bit of versatility whereby he may be able to reverse the effects of objects and materials he transforms, though he hasn't successfully done so yet.
Member
Kaithe Dame
Silent Showers
Cleveraptor
op2024
Tortoise
Noctis
Tally Dor
Guardian Angel Haruki
LadyAmber
TokyoPewPew
