Crimson Flame
Skinner35
PlatinumSkink
Name: Alexus Michelle Quant
Alias: Phoenix
Age: 20
Alignment: Hero
Loyalty: Protectorate
Appearance: Alex is an incredibly pale individual, and is one of many forms. Normally, though, her build is incredibly neutral with nothing standing out aside from her skin being both soft and rough to the touch, yet easily ignored otherwise. She's never dressed to impress, merely putting on what she finds comfortable when she can, normally just a hoodie and some shorts. Her hair is wavy and thick, cut down to where her chin ends, and she leaves it a consistent mess unless she's going out as Phoenix.
Phoenix's costume doesn't cover much, merely being a cropped tanktop to cover her breasts, some shorts to cover her ass, and a bandanna and hairpiece to mask her identity. The outfit is decorated in warm colors, namely an abundance of orange and red, and overall has a more firey appearance. It's a hoax, of course, since her power doesn't involve fire in any way, so the disguise merely acts as a ruse, as well as a way to maximize the spread of her spores outwards upon the death.
History:
Alex's life was a bit of a pain from the start. Initially everything was okay, but as Alex's father began to lose track of time, work, and Alex's mother, eventually she had to deal with the stress of a mentally abusive father. From the beginning, it seemed kind of the normal for Alex, and they could only follow with how it was called 'discipline' and how it just seemed rational to feel like you were nothing after a while of constant berating and screaming being directed at you and it somehow involving your mother. Though, it perplexed Alex.
Alex never met their mother. The earliest memories of the woman were only clips, and they never seemed happy except when Alex and her mom were alone without the father. Just the two alone. It was confusing, but Alex never was allowed to bring it up. If she did, she'd have to be punished for bringing up a taboo subject to their father. There were many times that Alex did think of asking her father why Alex's mother mattered in the grand scheme, but she never did. Honestly, she was too afraid to do it. The underlining fear of Alex facing worse punishments kept them from speaking to their father.
Keeping the feelings and questions bottled up did not help Alex get any better. It kept Alex in a constant state of negativity towards herself, ranging from simple comments to quieted actions of self harm. These actions always stayed unnoticed by her father as the harm always stayed out of sight, specifically on the skin of their upper thigh. That was a place left untainted by the hands of her father, and it was one of the few places where she had total control. She felt like she could use those areas to prepare for what was to come without feeling the wrath of her father. It wasn't going to last, as the eventual day came where Alex began to feel the physical pain of their father, but it was cherished nonetheless.
The physical pain started out as a minute thing, seemingly like an addition to the early pain she felt with the mental stress she had been going under with her father, but then it slowly began to become more prominent in the punishments, where the bruises on her chest and stomach became normal occurrences. With what little money Alex could get from wherever she could, she accepted what would be another punishment as she got her hair cut down far shorter than what was expected of most girls her age, which was fourteen at the time. The punishment would be worth it as long as it made the future ones less painful. Unfortunately, the punishment that resulted from her haircut wouldn't end well, as new tools were involved, specifically a leather whip. Alex was stripped naked, but not deflowered, as her father took a whip and proceeded to open up her cuts and give her new ones.
Alex's social life, over this entire time, was incredibly shallow. Not many people wanted to approach the girl, due to her outcast appearance and her rather intimidating facade, but a few friends stuck with her throughout the years. Specifically her best friend Georgia, who invited Alex over to her house for a sleepover once. It was at that sleepover that Alex was confronted about how she was abused, and Alex kind of shut down halfway through the sleepover. It wasn't until the girl woke up three different times from terrible dreams that she finally opened up to Georgia about the situation. Georgia was sworn to secrecy that she couldn't tell anyone, because if Alex's father found out what happened, Alex would most certainly not be walking away, and Georgia agreed to keep it to herself.
Alex went on to explain how she hurt on so many levels. It wasn't just mental pain and physical stress anymore, it was affecting her spirits. What little friends she could make left her in the dust in what seemed like a week or two later, and the girl had serious issues trying to work up any motivation to make herself happy. Everything seemed like it was just in an effort to lessen a future punishment from her dad, and there were always the days where, no matter whether or not she did anything, a punishment was in order. She could also never shake this feeling that, somehow, it was her fault for every punishment she had been receiving. Alex hugged Georgia before the two girls simply stayed awake after the outburst, what with Alex actually being unable to sleep and Georgia expressing extreme concern for her friend.
When Alex just turned sixteen, she had been told by their father to go and build a small shelter outside in the backyard. The idea puzzled Alex at first, seeing as it was the easiest punishment to have arisen in the past few weeks, and the simplicity of it was definitely something to be aware of. Perplexion evolved into anxiety as Alex did what she was told, builing a ramshackle shelter, no bigger than a large doghouse, and she showed it to her dad.
That's the place Alex would spend every other weekend. She would be forced to live in the doghouse whether it was bad or not. Alex forced herself to go along with this punishment, and it was overwritten in the spring and autumn, where it was neither too hot or too cold to warrant it as a punishment. This built a resentment of the doghouse in Alex, as every other weekend evolved into every weekend, and every weekend turned into every day (when Alex didn't have school, anyhow). Eventually, a heavy storm in early November took the doghouse down, and it left Alex overjoyed initially. There wasn't any more doghouse for her to have to stay in, and she could finally move back inside permanently. That was a short lived period of excitement, until their father grabbed a shovel and began digging a hole.
"Well, if you can't stay under some shelter, we should probably protect your body from the rain since you're still sleeping out here."
The next three nights were during Thanksgiving with Alex buried up to her waist in dirt, stark naked, and ear-bitingly cold. At that point, pain was such a hard term to identify that they were incredibly unsure if what they felt was truly pain anymore or if it was some kind of dulled anger. She was an eighteen year old who had been living with this constant abuse for the majority of her life, and every day had just turned into a repeat of the last. It originally scared Alex, but now all she could do is watch on as the same things she expected every day rinsed and repeated.
Miraculously, Alex survived without death, and she met their father at the end of the third day. The father was astonished, and responded quickly by grabbing the shovel he buried his child with, all the while making a hasty decision. He was planning on killing his own kin, right then and there, without a second thought. Alex tried her hardest to push herself out of the dirt, but found her actions useless as she couldn't budge her way out of there. She began to breathe rapidly as her father came out of the house, her friend Georgia on the phone in his hand, as he told his daughter one last command.
"Say your last words to your friend, you ungrateful bitch."
Alex began to choke out her final words to her friend, but she couldn't bring herself to say anything. She couldn't speak because Alex felt something change inside her, and it was present enough to cause her to go mute for a minute.*
Alex's father simply frowned before hanging up the phone and beginning to bury his daughter alive. At first, it was horrifying, but as the darkness slowly climbed over her face and eyes, everything seemed rather blissful as she eventually found her way towards the light that everyone talked about. It seemed so close to her grasp, like she could reach out and just take it.
The light then began to move out of her vicinity, and not before long did Alex feel the same feeling of being buried alive. Alex panicked at first. Surely this wasn't her fate. The afterlife wasn't just an unending cycle of that same damn feeling of being under the dirt. It couldn't be! Alex pushed herself to move as she resisted the urge to break through the earth, trying her hardest to climb out of the prison she had just been entombed in. Surprisingly, the dirt gave way like it was nothing more than water, and Alex re-emerged from her backyard.
Underneath the moonlight, the girl stared up at what appeared to be a crime scene. In front of her laid the most dazzling amount of flora she had ever witnessed, with stems rimming with flowers in colors that she couldn't even describe. It was confusing to her initially, then she noticed the more obvious detail. Laid before her was her father, sprawled out onto the dirt like a dead body, and with vines shooting out of his veins. What seemed like open wounds had vegetable mush leaking out of it, and in his hand held the handle of the shovel that buried Alex. Behind him was a dirt mound, uncovered by police, with Alex's asphyxiated head protruding from the soil.
Alex was reborn. Given a second chance at life.
Eventually, after the police had closed the case with PRT involvement, Alex learned from her mother the true reason why she had been put through so much suffering and pain. Alex's had blamed Alex for the divorce that caused Alex's mom to leave the family, and he thought such a deed was so unmistakably awful that there only existed one fate for it. Endless torment until both parties could exist with mutual feelings of the other. Pure, uncontrolled, and unrelenting resentment and hatred.
Personality
Motivations: Honestly, Alex just wants to figure out what the hell is going on in this world and why she's forced to live her life out with her power. That's all.
Sexuality: Asexual.
Likes:
- Cold temperatures
- Being moist
- Smelling
- Being smothered by people
- Flora
- Jazz music
- Mom
Dislikes:
- Fire in many forms
- Brooding and narcissistic people
- Being annoyed
- Princesses
- Heat above a certain degree
- Being talked down or treated like a freak
- Pop Rocks
- Anything regarding her dad
Derangement: Alex is entirely aware of her own immortality and how incredibly depressing it makes her existence. In her own words, "Holy shit, life is meaningless." Additionally, Alex has an aversion to making connections with people, as the nature of her power puts others she's around at risk of being hurt. Despite her absolutely depressing outlook on life, she tries to stay positive at the recommendation of her therapist.
Parahumanism
Skills: Alex's a pretty good cook, makeup artist, grafitti artist, boxer, and martial artist. She's also an accomplished gardener, though that should come to no surprise.
Classification: Brute
Details: Fungal Rebirth. You may establish mycelium colonies in healthy locations with suitable soil, moisture, and sunlight. Upon suffering fatal damage, your consciousness is transplanted to a new body growing in the nearest of your gardens. Meanwhile, your body explodes into airborne spores, giving anyone that inhaled you possibly one of the worst trips they'll likely ever experience. Your trigger site is a respawn point, and you look exactly like you were when you triggered on the outside, unless you have extrenuous augments.
Augmentations:
- Enhanced physical abilities, given by a fungal body. You are slightly above the physical peak a regular human can obtain. You do not tire like normal, you have mildly enhanced strength and speed, and have faster reactions. You do not feel pain, not exactly, but more of a panic as parts of you are destroyed. You have no need to eat or sleep. You do not regenerate outside of Rebirth.
- Further Augmentations may be given based on the circumstances of your previous death, and may include:
- - Enhanced durability due to an increase in total fungus material, but coming at the cost of decreased mobility. (Less human appearance)
- - Enhanced mobility due to a decrease in total fungus material, but coming at the cost of decreased durability. (Less human appearance)
- - Extra limbs, commonly arms.
- - Extra eyes.
Limitations: To create another respawn point it takes a fair bit of time, at least a few days worth of meditation and care to create just one. After a site has been established, it will take a few days for the site to become a proper respawn point. The spores you create are not lethal, and taking amount of spores results in the afflicted experiencing an LSD like effect, where the severity of the effect is dependent on how many spores the afflicted has taken in. Effects will ALWAYS last for 15 minutes, and severity ranges from minor confusion and altered state of mind to full episodes of psychosis and paranoia, complete with hallucinations.
Weaknesses: Fire, direct electricity, lack of sunlight and water.
Equipment: Nothing of incredible note, though all PRT communicators she has are cheap to make and easy to replace.
