“I’ve always liked the feeling of dirt between my toes. The smell of ozone in the air. Maybe people are just too loud for me.”
« AGE and BIRTHDAY »
24 ─ January 20th
« IDENTITY »
F ─ TransMasc ─ He/Him
« STATISTICS »
6’5” ─ 267 lbs ─ Blood type:B and riddled with bug eggs
« ALIGNMENT »
Neutral Good
« GENERAL »
Elijah in his civilian persona is a tall, buff man. He goes to the gym daily and you can tell. His hair is short on the top and shaved on the sides. It is usually a soft, blondish-brown but he is known to dye streaks of green into it. His nose is quite large and has been broken twice throughout his life. His eyebrows are bushy. His ears are pierced in several places. Elijah regularly smokes, so he stinks of cigarettes and, occasionally, alcohol. His voice is gruff and scarred with his smoking addiction.
Elijah wears oversized hoodies and sweatpants to hide as much of his body as possible. They are usually some shade of green, gray, or black. He hides his body in part because he is self conscious, but also because it covers the scars that run up every part of his body. He is littered in circular scars where bugs have drilled into his flesh. His chest is a mangled, lumpy mess of scar tissue from the same event.
« METASONA »
Elijah’s Herosona, King Stag, grows several inches taller and gains a considerable amount of weight. His body gets covered in a thick, iridescent carapace. A large, similarly colored shell forms on his back. Powerful but not so dexterous, orangish-gold beetle wings grow underneath the shell. The carapace grows over his head and creates a sort of helmet. His eyes turn black, developing a bug-like look to them. On his pseudo-helmet is a large, sharp horn. When in this form, all bugs (especially beetles) are attracted to him. Thus, it is not uncommon for bugs to be crawling around on his carapace.
Loyal ─ Honorable ─ Snuggler ⤄ Loud ─ Secretly Anxious ─ Toxically Masculine – Touch Starved
Elijah has a hard exterior. Sometimes literally. He falls into (often toxic) hypermasculine tropes in a desperate attempt to feel like he’s doing his sexuality “correctly”. That does mean, however, that he is a secret softy with a love for fantasy and cutesy movie dates. He is touch starved, which he often expresses through physical violence (think wrestling with his firefighter buddies or enjoying physical combat more than he probably should because it means he’s feeling the touch of another person). His humor is sarcastic and dry, owing to a sort a spitefulness towards life. His desire for justice could be considered very selfish, given he does it out of a desire to be worth something. This does mean that he fears failure, because it proves to him that he is undeserving of kindness.
« ORIENTATION »
Bisexual ─ Biromantic ─ Polyamorous
« LIKES »
Beetles ─ Fantasy Stories ─ Big, soft blankets — Rainy Days — Warm, cozy fires
« DISLIKES »
Police ─ Synthetic Clothing ─ Repetitive Noises — Water (Intense fear of/Can’t swim)
« THEME SONGS »
“Outrunning Karma” ─ Alec Benjamin
« EDUCATION LEVEL »
Got to junior year of highschool, then dropped out.
« SKILLS and HOBBIES »
Bug Pinning ─ Hiking ─ Weight Lifting – Knitting
« ABILITIES »
Infestation Form ─ Elijah is capable of using the energy given to him by the Infestation to take on insect aspects. He gains a shell and carapace along his body. These are both incredibly durable and resistant to most forms of physical damage. The form boosts his strength three-fold. Finally, he is capable of producing pheromones which allow him to communicate with insects in the area.
Radiation Immunity ─ Like the mighty roach, Elijah is immune to radiation. This is because his cells are resistant to it, similar to how many beetles handle radiation well. The exception is when he is molting, though that is a rare event for him.
Breath Extension ─ Elijah’s breath capacity is dramatically increased, allowing him to (while doing very little movement) hold his breath for hours at a time. This is because his body is capable of storing large amounts of oxygen and, while inactive, avoid spending it.
« ABILITY LIMITS »
Weakness of the Flesh ─ Due to the sheer weight of Beetle form, Elijah’s speed and dexterity are cut considerably. Also, due to how he obtained the form and the strain on his body, if the carapace is broken, his body is incredibly weak. His organs are especially susceptible to puncture due to the large amount of scar tissue.
Radiation Burn ─ While Elijah may resist radiation for extended periods of time, he cannot resist the heat and other external effects radiation may cause. Prolonged exposure softens his carapace and can cause internal effects.
Closed Spiracles ─The way Elijah’s body processes air has been radically changed by the Infestation. It functions very similarly to the spiracles found within bugs, though those spiracles take air from the breathing surface of the lungs. However, to keep that air stored, those spiracles must be closed. Therefore, excessive movement not only expends more air, but also makes it difficult to keep those spiracles closed. As such, Elijah cannot swim without extreme risk of drowning.
« FEARS and PHOBIAS »
Bodies of Water ─ Failure ─ Identity Exposure - Large birds of prey
« OTHER WEAKNESSES »
Easily emotionally manipulated, McCloud, Unfortunate attraction to bright and colorful lights, being made a warm meal (especially soup!), being touched around the neck in any matter, smoking
« RELATIONSHIP STATUS »
Single and trying so fucking hard to mingle. But being so god damn terrible at it.
« POSITIVE FIGURES »
Austin McCloud ─ McCloud was on the team that rescued Elijah from his encounter with the Infestation. He took Elijah in when he did not have a home and got him a job at the firestation.─ Pseudo-Father
« NEGATIVE FIGURES »
Mary and Robert Carvid ─ Elijah has detached himself from his abusive family members. When he was with them, his mother would berate him constantly and actively work to make him behave “Like a proper lady”. His father would physically reprimand him and was the reason he was sent to both conversion therapy and catholic school. ─ Bio-Mother and Father
Ricky Dinerez ─ Ricky is one of the Firefighters at the station who has been there the longest. Elijah, unaware of his toxicity, considers Ricky to be his best friend. Because of it, he brushes off verbal abuse, homophobic behavior, toxic relationship expectations, and even physical bullying. ─ Best Friend from the Station
« ASSOCIATIONS »
DNCC ─ After turning in Lady Radiance, Elijah was able to register with the DNCC as a hero.
Fire Fighter─ Elijah still continues to volunteer at the station. Not only is it good work, but it also means he gets in on training and workouts for free. ─ Volunteer
Elijah was born within the city to high class parents. They named him Ruth and raised him to fill the shoes of a traditional housewife, like his mother. He rarely had a chance to leave his home, save for school or to act as a trophy for his parents. When he did, though, he found himself escaping to the park. He would spend hours just digging in the dirt and watching the bugs.
Maybe it was that he always released the poor little things when they were trapped inside. Maybe it was how desperately Elijah fought to save anthills or beehives. Maybe it was the countless scraps of food he would sneak out to the beetles. Whatever it was, Elijah felt deeply connected to their little world. They were the countless friends he never had.
When Elijah got older, he started trying to explore masculinity. His parents pushed him away from that life as much as possible. He was sent to an all-girls catholic school. They told him he needed to fit in the role of a woman or risk ruining his family’s reputation.
Eventually, the abuse became too much. Elijah ran from home with nothing but a bag of clothes and some food. He found himself facing a cruel city with zero experience with real money and human interaction. Unable to pick up a job or find a place to stay, he found himself struggling to survive. As winter came and he still lacked shelter or food, Elijah found himself going to the park more often. It gave solace as he found himself struggling more and more to survive. When he had scraps too moldy to eat, he would offer them to his insectoid friends. It brought some sort of warmth to his freezing, dying self.
Maybe he should have died that harsh winter night. Maybe he should have frozen in the snow or starved to death there and then. Elijah did not starve, though. Instead, something was awakened in and around him. Bugs rose up from the dirt. Hundreds of worms and beetles, wasps and grubs. They crawled into him. Filled his tummy with nutrition for a cost. He could hear them, hungry. In that moment, he and the bugs shared each other. They kept him alive and full for the price of filling them with whatever flesh he could spare. A big part of this came from anywhere he had fat, which meant that much of his chest was simply eaten away.
It was that moment that Elijah realized he could sense them. Understand their feelings, as far as feelings went for bugs. He became one of the swarm, both infested and the infestee. It took him several years to realize just how true ‘the swarm’ and ‘the infestation’ were as titles. It was not one being that gave him power. It was the collective consciousness of the insects.
The bugs were a source of luck in more than one way. They awakened the power in him to take on aspects of insects and to communicate with them, to a limited extent. This communication is much closer to how an ant queen would communicate with her colony. There was one other bit of luck, though. A passerby in the park saw the state he was in and called for an ambulance. When he woke up in the hospital, he was questioned about what happened. His explanation sparked sympathy and he was given a job as a part time firefighter. The pay was not high, but it covered what he needed to pay rent and eat food. It also gave him the opportunity to learn and test his new powers, though he kept them generally secret for fear that they would scare away the first real friends he had ever had.
Elijah also quickly learned that most men at the station did not know about his biological gender. It allowed him to start an entirely new life in the gender he desired… with the constant underlying fear that he will be found out and his life will be ripped out from under him yet again.
The night Elijah decided to take up crime fighting came when he was on the scene of a brutal fire that had consumed a residential building. There had been a string of arson cases which the police had done little to take care of. In the beginning, the fire department handled the fires before anyone was seriously injured. Unfortunately, they could not always be that lucky.
There was a lot that scarred Elijah throughout his life. Abuse and bugs seemed so far away compared to that night. The firemen, himself included, had been delayed because of a car wreck. As a result, most of the building was already consumed by flames when they arrived. There is nothing quite like the image of McCloud, half melted, carrying a woman in his arms who had no right to be alive. Elijah could still smell the burnt hair. He was among the men who went in and carried out whoever they could manage to save.
The fatalities were high. Too high. McCloud never managed to get back into field work. His legs were made practically unusable. When the police chalked it up to an accident, something within Elijah snapped. Some research revealed that all of the buildings previously affected were owned by the same company. That research plus obsessive checking on the last building owned by said company within the city meant Elijah caught the arsonist red handed. Lady Radiance was a firefly villain with fire powers who wanted revenge on the building owners. Elijah later found out about her connection to the Cult of Ground Zero and found a new purpose in hunting that specific group down. The DNCC was more than happy have him join when he revealed his intentions to them.
The capture of Lady Radiance made the news, as it was shocking to see a new hero ending a string of arson and murder. Luckily for him, the transformation made his face unrecognizable, as a layer of chitin acts as a sort of helmet. The attention and his loathing for the failing police system made Elijah realize there was something good he could do for the world. He would not be a failure any more, relying on others for charity. Elijah could actually save people. It became a very unhealthy obsession. When he played the idyllic hero, not only was he doing real good, but he was finally worthwhile.
The role of hero has taken away much of Elijah’s free time. He gets very little social interaction outside of his workplace, which has left his love life in shambles. Elijah has tried dating a few times, but it rarely goes well because of how often he gets called away for work or being a hero.
Member
Festive
Creative Chaos
Kronshi
Izurich
rexgn
Arty Fox
Rabbitconfusion
meri
Shazamrock
ampersand
