Bureaucracy, despite all of its flaws, was a necessary evil in some instances. It was a process which Peter had understood well, but regardlessly was also righteously crossed at, prompted by the failure of invoking an authority personnel to clarify the misunderstanding that had arisen. He had arrived via cruise boat as per the rest of the new/returning student population, a means which in itself was a curious happening - but those that were obviously faculty of the two-eighteen facility that were acting as chaperons put to rest his initial doubts. Not through form of communication, of course, he never actually talked to them. He derived that if they were here then perhaps it wasn't peculiar that he himself would arrive to the jungle island with students. He had packed simple necessities and later scheduled his other equipment to be shipped to the island a few days after. His research, safe, desktop, documents, most of his library - his library was nigh useless to him at this point, but he assumed he would have assistants or other doctors aiding him in his endeavors, then perhaps it wouldn't hurt bringing some of those resources.
But all of his hard work and the work in getting here and the time spent in packing away and getting here - it was all wasted by a system error? It was the most logical conclusion he could come to. He had argued with the receptionist in the office for the longest time during the student get-together at the banquet, and of all things, she insisted that the computers said that his name was "Richard Cox" and that he was a new student enrolling into the school. Peter was a difficult man to anger, but it was needless to say that while his work was put into jeopardy, he became abnormally irate. And the name was so far off from his legal name, Peter Brooke - someone must have tampered with the files as a joke. Richard Cox? They basically changed his name to Dick Cox, so it had to have been a student. Only primate with disconnected brain lobes could have named him something so immature, and that meant only someone under the age of twenty-five could have done it. A harmless prank? Perhaps it would have been in any other case, but not this one. Whoever did this has no idea of the damage they caused.
So when he began raising his voice and sounded panicked, it was only natural for the receptionist to call security and escort him out of the office. He couldn't believe they didn't realize he was Peter Brooke, an applying faculty. Peter Brooke wasn't even in the system, they said. He was a forty-one year old man who has worked as a doctor for over a decade obsessively pursing an answer to one of mankind's greatest problems, and now he was stuck at a roadblock. As soon as he got his items, he'd show it to them straight and expect compensation for the trouble he was put through. But now he was here expected to take classes as though he were a student again. Hardly. These classes weren't worth his time. Socializing with kids? Not within his repertoire of expertise, nor within his realm of interest. Static energy was crawling all over his body and Peters dispelled it by sending it crawling over the floor outwards in every direction. The circumference did extend to the walls, and Peter got a good sense of his environment: aside from all the sound waves from the voices echoing and bouncing off his body, the static allowed him a good glimpse of what was around. There were kids everywhere. Perhaps some of the more receptive ones would be able to feel trace amounts of static crawling up their bodies, but it would otherwise be outside human perception. He didn't exude very much.
The sound waves that interacted with the static allowed him to make out words and some segments of conversation. Nothing interesting. Timmy liked Sandra. Some boy forgot Vera's name. Inconsistent biochemistry teachers. As high-tech, and well off, and well funded this academy was, nothing did seem to escape the standard drama or even the most mundane problems such as schedules and... personnel files. Not many teenagers stood his height and wore his out fit - a white button-up tucked into dress pants with a belt and dress shoes - unless of course they were intending to pass themselves off as someone else. He reckoned a lot of them did that. Whichever one of them who decided to pull his leg will be dealt with accordingly. As for the time being, he just had to play along and wait for his shipment. On the bright side, he did learn a couple things with the wrongfully condescending receptionist that couldn't get off her script - she did direct him to where he could get a room and stay put, where he could wait for his shipment and perhaps he could get it then. The only problem is that it wouldn't be shipped to Richard Cox's room. It would be in storage, waiting for Peter Brooke. He just needed to find somebody that could get in there for him.
He didn't know anybody yet, and he doubted anybody he could get to know wouldn't have the proper skill-set a trained infiltrator would have. If one of these kids did, he doubted they would be the kind of person to do it out of the goodness of their heart. Things were getting complicated. Still, he wasn't going to get the train rolling by just standing there doing nothing. So Peter proceeded, with each step he took, pulses of static from his feet radiated outward from him. To those he was nearby perhaps by just feel their hair stand on end or their skin tingle ever-so-subtly as he passed. Even his dress shoes couldn't completely hide the noise of his heavy footsteps. But it was through those steps he saw a couple of interesting things. He was pretty new to the world of powers, and was pretty isolated to his own little corner. So when he saw a massive lizard man, he didn't stop in his tracks, but neither did he stop staring. Watching Peter in return would be a little odd, since it appeared that, despite not looking where he was going, had three-sixty degree vision and was carefully about walking into people. But most of his attention was focused solely on the strange appearance of the one meta-boy. Was he a boy? He was massive and alien. It was strange to think that there might be a boy underneath all that. But given how he himself had one arm, was made of a unique metal allow, and had few facial features to speak of, Peter admitted he was pretty strange too. At least, he considered strange enough that he didn't freak out at the sight of the lizard boy. In fact, he was actually kind of fascinating. Despite the immorality of it, Peter did wonder what it would look like dissecting him. Not that he'd ever act upon that curiosity. But it really was fascinating.
"Hello, your name?" Said the secretary. Peter's head turned immediately to face them. Judging by their unchanging expression, she must have seen a lot during her time working here - he didn't even faze her. Everything within Peter screamed at him to say "Peter Brooke" - that was his identity after all. But it was a lost cause, he learned that from the receptionist in the office. If he still had a typical respiratory system, he would've sighed. Instead, he groaned. A sound of warping metal.
"...Richard Cox." Peter replied. His voice sounded hollow, like an echo, as though it were muffled by something. Slightly high pitched, as the bending of metal usually would sound. He saw the secretary expertly hold back a smile - he wouldn't have caught if the if he hadn't learned how to read faces. That electric field picked up on subtle changes pretty well.
"Here." She said, handing him a slip. That was one thing Peter wouldn't be able to read so well. "Your room mate will be Samuel Clarke. And there on your slip is your room number."
Peter didn't even glance at it - it was a waste of effort. He ungraciously slid it in his pocket and merely said in a low drone, "I cannot see very well. I will wait for Samuel. If you would, please forward the message to him that I will need a guide."
The secretary nodded, and perhaps was somewhat curious. Pretty formal if he was to masquerade as a student, yes, but Peter wasn't a student. The sooner he could get somebody to believe him, the better. Now he just had to wait for Samuel Clarke and hope for the best he wasn't a libertine ne'er-do-well. But truly, if that's what he had to put up with in order to continue his work, then so be it. He wasn't going to let kids interrupt his research. He didn't come here for games after all. He took a couple steps away from the desk and stood off to the side. With each step, he got more views of his surrounding. He hoped nobody was using electronics right now. Sure, sometimes they could handle it. Sometimes they went faster, more efficient. But not always. He shorted somebody's phone one time, some other times they were library computers. He tried to control the charge a bit more, at the trade off of less vivid sight and hearing.
But sometimes he still overloads circuits, and that's not something he can help without totally blinding himself. His desktop? Fortunately, it's high-grade. Rubber blockers and all, and the channels were of higher grade and could take higher charges. Only the best for his research. What would he be without it? A one-armed freak with nothing to lose and nothing to give. That isn't what he wanted to be. The radiance of the static stretched far enough to allow him another glance at the lizard man. He was a freak, too. At least he had arms. Peter wondered if he had something to lose, or something worth protecting. But if he really was just the boy, then perhaps that time hasn't come yet. He felt a twinge of regret that extended out to the students. Getting by in the modern world is tough. There's so much at stake. Their powers were just even more responsibilities to stack upon them.
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Right. I really meant to ask who his room mate would be, but I'm dumb, so w/e.
Is your list in the OP outdated or no? 41 y/o heavy metal doctor and 8 y/o hell beast sounds too much like a joke.
Is your list in the OP outdated or no? 41 y/o heavy metal doctor and 8 y/o hell beast sounds too much like a joke.
Where ought Peter's room be?
Dragonbud said
Lieo you are a huge bum and I love you
Pfft, I don't look like I'm the only one who has.
I just want to say, it's an absolute honor to be here today and bewilder every single one of you. I say with utmost modesty that I cannot wait to inflict awe and wonder upon you all, and that I eagerly hope that you may all aspire to be more like me and learn from my ways. Thank you.
Basic Information
Name: Peter Brooke
Nickname/Alias/Etc: Pvt. Brooke, Dr. Brooke, Richard Cox
Gender: Male
Age: 41 years
Height: 6'5" ft. (1.98 m)
Weight: 409 lbs. (185.5 kg)
Status: New "student"
Appearance
Hair Color: N/A
Eye Color: N/A
Ethnicity: A mix of German, Polish, Irish and French - which is another way of saying white/Caucasian.
Physical Appearance: He is nothing like any person has seen before and appears to be a Hollywood CGI construct. He stands at a daunting 6'5" height, which in itself is quite a height even for a grown man, and he weighs at least four hundred pounds. You see, his body is made of a titanium alloy with stainless steel and platinum. The sound he makes when struck, if a person was ever brave enough to do so, is peculiar because it sounds hollow (though to what extent is unable to be discerned). His solid body is smooth, sleek, shiny and it looks as though it was sculpted by an artist - he lacks any kind of hair at all and he is "muscled". Expanding upon this, he has broad shoulders, he has a toned abdomen, toned back, toned legs, arms - ah, excuse me - arm. He only has one arm. His left one. His right shoulder ends right there and there isn't even so much as a stub where his right arm used to be. In fact, even his genitalia appears to be missing, and what now replaces it is nothing more than a smooth curve that suggests nothing was ever there to begin with. While we're on the topic of missing, he doesn't have eyes either. All there is where his eyes should be are indents that would indicate eye sockets, but with nothing there as you would expect. He does have ears and a nose, but due to his body being metal, aren't things that have practical functions anymore. He has a mouth, but the sounds he makes when he tries to speak? It sounds as if metal is being bent or warped. It'd take practice, but given time, a lot of patience and effort, and with a little help from other aspects of his power, he learned how to speak. His voice sounds "hollow" for lack of a better term, and it sounds as though it echoes through his body. His body has no corrosion, rust and is free from marks that could even be comparable to a skin flaw. The platinum traits keeps him looking keen as always.
Attire: With his body turning to metal and the loss of his genitals, there's little need to seek out modesty in clothing. He could walk "in the nude" in front of children and still be perfectly acceptable. However, old habits die hard. He always wore his lab coat even before the change, as he rarely ever left. Under neath the coat would be a simple white button-up and black dress pants, along with shiny black dress shoes. He always did wear rather formal attire in his lab while performing research, and Peter rarely ever left his lab. He has little in the ways of casual attire except for perhaps a thick black jacket for whenever the harsh Maine winters rolled along, but that is hardly a necessary article of clothing for him anymore, and Peter is all about practicality.
Personality
Outward & Innate Personality: Peter is a troubled individual, but he is ambitious and well-meaning. He pushes forward through his hardships with admirable tenacity and the intelligence to make his plans work and come together. He has few relationships with others, as he is very much a recluse and prefers the solitary life, but doesn't make him any less capable of working with others. He is quite adept at teamwork as his experience would indicate and is willing to compromise lesser goals for the sake of greater progress. His self-reflection is modest. He has enough pride and confidence to push forward and believe in himself, but periodically falls into moods of depression and senses of desperation should his progress in his research come to a plateau. However, he is true to himself and others and despite his willingness to compromise, he will never give up his core beliefs and values regardless of the situation at hand. This, along with his research, are things that appears to be an obsession of his. So as selfless as he may appear at times, he does have his own motives and agenda, and if helping another person risks that, you can be sure he wouldn't lay a finger to help them. He has an eerie sort of level-headedness that is almost unnerving, and is alarmingly difficult to anger (unless you know what he's highly protective of) and has an apparent lack of sense of humor; these in conjunction with his wit and the mind of a thinker, he seems to talk in such a way that it sounds as though he knows something that you don't, but doesn't display the arrogance that usually comes with such a trait.
Fears: His obsession over his research is almost admirable even to paranoid schizophrenic. His work is locked up tighter than a high security prison, and if it was ever lost or damaged or stolen or if anything was done to compromise it, he'd be lost. And he'd do quite a bit to get that work back. It's not just for the sake of himself either, but for anybody who has also had to endure his condition. Otherwise, he isn't afraid of much. Being a soldier kind of beat that out of him with a club. However, explosions or depictions of explosions makes him uneasy. That is how he lost his arm after all.
Hobbies/Interests: Before Peter went overseas, he had a healthy interest in medicine and chemistry. Chemistry extended to a variety of things, and he dabbled a bit in cooking so he could watch the food cook carefully and think about all the changes that occurred that caused it to look and taste differently (his friends and family often commented about he took the soul out of cooking). He enjoyed track while in high school. But much of his hobbies and interests have become a blur in recent years since the rise of his obsession. There isn't much he looks into beyond his own research into stem cell development.
Skills/Talents: Peter is a talented doctor, and even has Ph.D in medicine before becoming a licensed medical engineer to create medicine. He has spent the last few years of his life researching stem cells and stem cell production and replication. His college experience gives him a good deal of book smarts, and he knows a fair amount of chemistry and other physics-like topics and is generally a good study. Answering interviews and whatnot gave him some experience in talking properly to other people, and just enough political speak to answer as vaguely as he can while on topic, as to not give away too much information before he published his work. He was also once a soldier, so he would have received the standard training including maneuvers and combat training and marksmanship - survival, tactics, and so on. The rigid schedule disciplined him so he can adapt to routines and strict rules.
Prized Possession: His stem cell research is locked up tighter than Alcatraz.
Quote(s): "I don't want to be an idol, or a hero. Or an example. I just want to finish what I started and give hope to people like me."
History/Bio: Peter came from a very poor family from Maine. He was smart, and could get through school like a breeze. He had very little trouble in his childhood aside from the challenges that came naturally when living as a lower class family. As expected, when he graduated from high school, neither he nor his family had the funds to put him through college and he wasn't considered qualified for scholarships - apparently a lower class kid interested in medical engineering wasn't good enough of an investment. So Peter was forced to look towards other areas to make college life easier. So he enlisted in the United States military when he was nineteen for both the pay and college benefits it would provide. After training, he was finally sent to Saudi Arabia to repel Iraq during Operation Desert Storm. His very first mission out, the vehicle Peter was riding in hit a land mine. The explosion and shrapnel tore up his right arm and killed everyone in the vehicle except for him and one other. He was later rushed for medical treatment and the only alternative that was available to him was to amputate the arm entirely. No longer being a serviceable soldier, he was forced to retire without having done anything but lose an arm. He was at least provided monthly compensation and the opportunity to go to college as a disabled veteran.
It was basically mockery from the Gods, he always figured. And he never did get over that incident. In fact, he grew to become fervorous over it. He did eventually earn his Ph.D through college, as difficult as it was with all the post traumatic stress nightmares and the crippling disadvantage that came with having only one arm. He became a doctor and pursued medical engineering as previously planned. In a short period of time however, medicine research shifted to stem cell research. In fact, the loss of his arm was nearly tormenting to him. He grew obsessive over his research of stem cells and managed to get quite a bit of work done on it, but was by no means famous for it. He answered a couple of interviews on his progress, and he felt he was getting quite close to the answer. He pursued stem cell research for twelve years. He figured a couple things out, ran several tests and experiments, but nothing so groundbreaking as the regeneration of a whole arm. Not to mention the entire pro-life community kept him from getting the necessary amount of funding.
Peter never knew he was a meta-human though - he was a late bloomer. So he woke up one morning and was unable to feel the soft, plushy cushions or blink away the curtain of darkness that veiled his eyes. He felt as though all of his senses were deadened, and screaming in despair resulted in nothing but an ugly moan that reverberated throughout his metal body. He no longer required food or water, and so he remained for another month or two unable to continue his research, or get a feel for his environment. He talked to himself incessantly - or tried to - and eventually managed to get it down somewhat. The third month he discovered the other part of his power. He always felt the fuzzy feeling inside of his head. When it surged through his body and gave life to all of his senses, it was, pardon the pun, quite the shocker. It took even longer months for him to practice them well enough and effectively navigate his environment without frying some electronics, but when he did and was able to control the amperage amount, he returned to his research in a frenzy and reviewed all of his notes. During that time of practice, he had difficulty coming to terms that his body was metal, and that he would never get his arm back. He only managed to accept himself once he came to the conclusion he would finish his work for the sake of others like him.
It was also during that time he developed an addiction to electricity. And it wasn't just because he could regain his senses and had reflexes as fast as lightning, but once he learned that once he had enough, he could channel the voltage into a condensed arc of crackling electricity into the shape of an arm. He made himself a right arm and was able to move it as he normally would and more, able to reach places and bend in ways a normal arm would otherwise be unable to do. But it wasn't the improvements that psyched him, it was just the fact he had an arm again. Granted, it took a lot of energy, and it was something he could only keep for ten minutes before the arm died away. That time had been one of the few times since the accident he felt true joy - euphoria, even. Unfortunately, his already sub-standard funding became worse once people learned he was a meta-human. So he was forced to turn to other means, and applied to Academy 218 as a researcher and doctor where they could fund him indefinitely. However, one of the students had tampered with the systems when nobody was in the office. They changed his data from "applying faculty" to "student" and even changed the name to "Richard Cox". So given this mix-up, little to his knowledge, this forty-one year old doctor is being sent to school as a student, where nobody would ever believe he was anything but. After all, his appearance was wiped to a clean sheet of metal. There'd be no telling he was older than everyone else. He could tell the truth, of course, but we all know teenagers are notoriously avid liars.
Family: Father: Sylvester Brooke (deceased); Mother: Roberta Brooke (deceased)
Relationships
Relationships:
Cordelia Lynn | Wary | Possible Contact | "She might be the variety of person I am looking for. No actual business has been concluded yet. Suspicious. Telling her my work is precarious but I am presented with no alternative."
Amanda Blackmore | Neutral | Background Noise | [i]"Disruptive, but lacks cleverness. She poses minimal risk, the worst being a distraction on occasion."
Matthew Evans | Neutral | Stranger | "Presents an absurd duality of aggression and level-headed behavior - otherwise irrelevant. Can be logically assumed there will not be any further business shared."
Abilities
Power Class: Anatomical/Biological, 4; Elemental, 6
Power: There is little left of Peter's original body other than its shape. His body is made completely up with a shiny, sleek, non-rusting and non-corroding metallic skin strong enough that it allows him to be very much capable of withstanding beatings that would kill most other people. Further, this metallic body appears to be simply a boat for another ability: his brain is a generator. It produces generous amounts of electricity of which he is capable of controlling. He can control the flow of the current through any part of his body, keeping the current in place in his head or in his hands, and even arcing the electricity into the environment around him. This allows him incredible reflexes normal humans aren't capable of reaching, since the transfer of electricity through the metal alloy is faster than the electric signals sent from a standard brain to the neurons in your typical nervous system. However, his perceptions of sight and sound as we know it had been eradicated completely, and is seemingly vulnerable to the world around him. Fortunately, there's a method for him getting around this. Arcing low-voltage currents of electricity into his surroundings allows him to know where the current stops or where it is interrupted, giving him a sense of where things are. Interactions with this current creates a sound that "resonates" back to Peter, and sound waves causes a similar form of interaction. The change in sound waves also changes the sound Peter receives, so is capable of understanding speech. Similarly, interaction with this static sends his metal body a message allowing him to perceive something akin to a sense of touch, though the force or texture of such doesn't change the sensation. He can channel large amounts of electricity to form straight-up lightning bolts or controlled energy where he can condense electricity and form it into shapes - thereby creating an arm for his right shoulder which he can control.
Weaknesses/Limitations/Drawbacks: I know what you're thinking, and I'm telling you now that it's wrong: water does not fry him. Short-circuiting occurs in a circuit-board. Point A carries 5 volts to point B. Point C carries 10 volts to point D. When water gets into the circuit-board, it gets everywhere and there are no longer any channels. So 10 volts from point C gets sent to point B, which is only capable of handling 5 volts. Point B gets fried, along with various other points, and the whole circuit shuts down. Peter doesn't have circuits. His entire body is an electrical boat. Now with that lesson out of the way, I will say that water provides complications regardless. For starters, he can't swim. He's too heavy. Water is conductive because of the minerals it carries, so water can mess up the direction and degree of control in which he can send the electricity. To clarify, let's take an obscure scenario so it gives you an idea what water does: a ball of water is suspended in the air. Peter's hand is in the water. He points out his finger and tries to shoot lightning. But it goes nowhere and nothing really happens. That's because the conductive water interrupts the flow of electricity and conducts it. Of course, lots of electricity creates lots of energy which can cause the water to evaporate, but it's still like an insulator. Being in water can still get you killed. Being in water can suck away the electric charge in Peter's hollow metal body. Rubber blocks electrical currents, of course. And quite frankly, strong electrical attacks like bolts and whatnot actually require a lot of electricity for Peter to use, which he must accumulate enough of through his natural generator (which will take a long time), or redirect a current to him by grabbing wires or something. Being struck by lightning or being overloaded wouldn't kill him, but it would cause stress on him if he doesn't dispel it. Peter lacks any form of regeneration and all damage is permanent provided there isn't someone capable of creating repairs through means of manipulating metal. Fortunately, he's pretty durable as is, but he is not indestructible.
Other: I kinda want it to be a running joke that he's this grown man in a terrible mix-up who's desperately trying to get back to his research and nobody believes that he isn't a student, so that he's a 41 year old doctor stuck around a bunch of super-powered high-schoolers and college-age kids.
Name: Peter Brooke
Nickname/Alias/Etc: Pvt. Brooke, Dr. Brooke, Richard Cox
Gender: Male
Age: 41 years
Height: 6'5" ft. (1.98 m)
Weight: 409 lbs. (185.5 kg)
Status: New "student"
Appearance
Hair Color: N/A
Eye Color: N/A
Ethnicity: A mix of German, Polish, Irish and French - which is another way of saying white/Caucasian.
Physical Appearance: He is nothing like any person has seen before and appears to be a Hollywood CGI construct. He stands at a daunting 6'5" height, which in itself is quite a height even for a grown man, and he weighs at least four hundred pounds. You see, his body is made of a titanium alloy with stainless steel and platinum. The sound he makes when struck, if a person was ever brave enough to do so, is peculiar because it sounds hollow (though to what extent is unable to be discerned). His solid body is smooth, sleek, shiny and it looks as though it was sculpted by an artist - he lacks any kind of hair at all and he is "muscled". Expanding upon this, he has broad shoulders, he has a toned abdomen, toned back, toned legs, arms - ah, excuse me - arm. He only has one arm. His left one. His right shoulder ends right there and there isn't even so much as a stub where his right arm used to be. In fact, even his genitalia appears to be missing, and what now replaces it is nothing more than a smooth curve that suggests nothing was ever there to begin with. While we're on the topic of missing, he doesn't have eyes either. All there is where his eyes should be are indents that would indicate eye sockets, but with nothing there as you would expect. He does have ears and a nose, but due to his body being metal, aren't things that have practical functions anymore. He has a mouth, but the sounds he makes when he tries to speak? It sounds as if metal is being bent or warped. It'd take practice, but given time, a lot of patience and effort, and with a little help from other aspects of his power, he learned how to speak. His voice sounds "hollow" for lack of a better term, and it sounds as though it echoes through his body. His body has no corrosion, rust and is free from marks that could even be comparable to a skin flaw. The platinum traits keeps him looking keen as always.
Attire: With his body turning to metal and the loss of his genitals, there's little need to seek out modesty in clothing. He could walk "in the nude" in front of children and still be perfectly acceptable. However, old habits die hard. He always wore his lab coat even before the change, as he rarely ever left. Under neath the coat would be a simple white button-up and black dress pants, along with shiny black dress shoes. He always did wear rather formal attire in his lab while performing research, and Peter rarely ever left his lab. He has little in the ways of casual attire except for perhaps a thick black jacket for whenever the harsh Maine winters rolled along, but that is hardly a necessary article of clothing for him anymore, and Peter is all about practicality.
Personality
Outward & Innate Personality: Peter is a troubled individual, but he is ambitious and well-meaning. He pushes forward through his hardships with admirable tenacity and the intelligence to make his plans work and come together. He has few relationships with others, as he is very much a recluse and prefers the solitary life, but doesn't make him any less capable of working with others. He is quite adept at teamwork as his experience would indicate and is willing to compromise lesser goals for the sake of greater progress. His self-reflection is modest. He has enough pride and confidence to push forward and believe in himself, but periodically falls into moods of depression and senses of desperation should his progress in his research come to a plateau. However, he is true to himself and others and despite his willingness to compromise, he will never give up his core beliefs and values regardless of the situation at hand. This, along with his research, are things that appears to be an obsession of his. So as selfless as he may appear at times, he does have his own motives and agenda, and if helping another person risks that, you can be sure he wouldn't lay a finger to help them. He has an eerie sort of level-headedness that is almost unnerving, and is alarmingly difficult to anger (unless you know what he's highly protective of) and has an apparent lack of sense of humor; these in conjunction with his wit and the mind of a thinker, he seems to talk in such a way that it sounds as though he knows something that you don't, but doesn't display the arrogance that usually comes with such a trait.
Fears: His obsession over his research is almost admirable even to paranoid schizophrenic. His work is locked up tighter than a high security prison, and if it was ever lost or damaged or stolen or if anything was done to compromise it, he'd be lost. And he'd do quite a bit to get that work back. It's not just for the sake of himself either, but for anybody who has also had to endure his condition. Otherwise, he isn't afraid of much. Being a soldier kind of beat that out of him with a club. However, explosions or depictions of explosions makes him uneasy. That is how he lost his arm after all.
Hobbies/Interests: Before Peter went overseas, he had a healthy interest in medicine and chemistry. Chemistry extended to a variety of things, and he dabbled a bit in cooking so he could watch the food cook carefully and think about all the changes that occurred that caused it to look and taste differently (his friends and family often commented about he took the soul out of cooking). He enjoyed track while in high school. But much of his hobbies and interests have become a blur in recent years since the rise of his obsession. There isn't much he looks into beyond his own research into stem cell development.
Skills/Talents: Peter is a talented doctor, and even has Ph.D in medicine before becoming a licensed medical engineer to create medicine. He has spent the last few years of his life researching stem cells and stem cell production and replication. His college experience gives him a good deal of book smarts, and he knows a fair amount of chemistry and other physics-like topics and is generally a good study. Answering interviews and whatnot gave him some experience in talking properly to other people, and just enough political speak to answer as vaguely as he can while on topic, as to not give away too much information before he published his work. He was also once a soldier, so he would have received the standard training including maneuvers and combat training and marksmanship - survival, tactics, and so on. The rigid schedule disciplined him so he can adapt to routines and strict rules.
Prized Possession: His stem cell research is locked up tighter than Alcatraz.
Quote(s): "I don't want to be an idol, or a hero. Or an example. I just want to finish what I started and give hope to people like me."
History/Bio: Peter came from a very poor family from Maine. He was smart, and could get through school like a breeze. He had very little trouble in his childhood aside from the challenges that came naturally when living as a lower class family. As expected, when he graduated from high school, neither he nor his family had the funds to put him through college and he wasn't considered qualified for scholarships - apparently a lower class kid interested in medical engineering wasn't good enough of an investment. So Peter was forced to look towards other areas to make college life easier. So he enlisted in the United States military when he was nineteen for both the pay and college benefits it would provide. After training, he was finally sent to Saudi Arabia to repel Iraq during Operation Desert Storm. His very first mission out, the vehicle Peter was riding in hit a land mine. The explosion and shrapnel tore up his right arm and killed everyone in the vehicle except for him and one other. He was later rushed for medical treatment and the only alternative that was available to him was to amputate the arm entirely. No longer being a serviceable soldier, he was forced to retire without having done anything but lose an arm. He was at least provided monthly compensation and the opportunity to go to college as a disabled veteran.
It was basically mockery from the Gods, he always figured. And he never did get over that incident. In fact, he grew to become fervorous over it. He did eventually earn his Ph.D through college, as difficult as it was with all the post traumatic stress nightmares and the crippling disadvantage that came with having only one arm. He became a doctor and pursued medical engineering as previously planned. In a short period of time however, medicine research shifted to stem cell research. In fact, the loss of his arm was nearly tormenting to him. He grew obsessive over his research of stem cells and managed to get quite a bit of work done on it, but was by no means famous for it. He answered a couple of interviews on his progress, and he felt he was getting quite close to the answer. He pursued stem cell research for twelve years. He figured a couple things out, ran several tests and experiments, but nothing so groundbreaking as the regeneration of a whole arm. Not to mention the entire pro-life community kept him from getting the necessary amount of funding.
Peter never knew he was a meta-human though - he was a late bloomer. So he woke up one morning and was unable to feel the soft, plushy cushions or blink away the curtain of darkness that veiled his eyes. He felt as though all of his senses were deadened, and screaming in despair resulted in nothing but an ugly moan that reverberated throughout his metal body. He no longer required food or water, and so he remained for another month or two unable to continue his research, or get a feel for his environment. He talked to himself incessantly - or tried to - and eventually managed to get it down somewhat. The third month he discovered the other part of his power. He always felt the fuzzy feeling inside of his head. When it surged through his body and gave life to all of his senses, it was, pardon the pun, quite the shocker. It took even longer months for him to practice them well enough and effectively navigate his environment without frying some electronics, but when he did and was able to control the amperage amount, he returned to his research in a frenzy and reviewed all of his notes. During that time of practice, he had difficulty coming to terms that his body was metal, and that he would never get his arm back. He only managed to accept himself once he came to the conclusion he would finish his work for the sake of others like him.
It was also during that time he developed an addiction to electricity. And it wasn't just because he could regain his senses and had reflexes as fast as lightning, but once he learned that once he had enough, he could channel the voltage into a condensed arc of crackling electricity into the shape of an arm. He made himself a right arm and was able to move it as he normally would and more, able to reach places and bend in ways a normal arm would otherwise be unable to do. But it wasn't the improvements that psyched him, it was just the fact he had an arm again. Granted, it took a lot of energy, and it was something he could only keep for ten minutes before the arm died away. That time had been one of the few times since the accident he felt true joy - euphoria, even. Unfortunately, his already sub-standard funding became worse once people learned he was a meta-human. So he was forced to turn to other means, and applied to Academy 218 as a researcher and doctor where they could fund him indefinitely. However, one of the students had tampered with the systems when nobody was in the office. They changed his data from "applying faculty" to "student" and even changed the name to "Richard Cox". So given this mix-up, little to his knowledge, this forty-one year old doctor is being sent to school as a student, where nobody would ever believe he was anything but. After all, his appearance was wiped to a clean sheet of metal. There'd be no telling he was older than everyone else. He could tell the truth, of course, but we all know teenagers are notoriously avid liars.
Family: Father: Sylvester Brooke (deceased); Mother: Roberta Brooke (deceased)
Relationships
Relationships:
Cordelia Lynn | Wary | Possible Contact | "She might be the variety of person I am looking for. No actual business has been concluded yet. Suspicious. Telling her my work is precarious but I am presented with no alternative."
Amanda Blackmore | Neutral | Background Noise | [i]"Disruptive, but lacks cleverness. She poses minimal risk, the worst being a distraction on occasion."
Matthew Evans | Neutral | Stranger | "Presents an absurd duality of aggression and level-headed behavior - otherwise irrelevant. Can be logically assumed there will not be any further business shared."
Abilities
Power Class: Anatomical/Biological, 4; Elemental, 6
Power: There is little left of Peter's original body other than its shape. His body is made completely up with a shiny, sleek, non-rusting and non-corroding metallic skin strong enough that it allows him to be very much capable of withstanding beatings that would kill most other people. Further, this metallic body appears to be simply a boat for another ability: his brain is a generator. It produces generous amounts of electricity of which he is capable of controlling. He can control the flow of the current through any part of his body, keeping the current in place in his head or in his hands, and even arcing the electricity into the environment around him. This allows him incredible reflexes normal humans aren't capable of reaching, since the transfer of electricity through the metal alloy is faster than the electric signals sent from a standard brain to the neurons in your typical nervous system. However, his perceptions of sight and sound as we know it had been eradicated completely, and is seemingly vulnerable to the world around him. Fortunately, there's a method for him getting around this. Arcing low-voltage currents of electricity into his surroundings allows him to know where the current stops or where it is interrupted, giving him a sense of where things are. Interactions with this current creates a sound that "resonates" back to Peter, and sound waves causes a similar form of interaction. The change in sound waves also changes the sound Peter receives, so is capable of understanding speech. Similarly, interaction with this static sends his metal body a message allowing him to perceive something akin to a sense of touch, though the force or texture of such doesn't change the sensation. He can channel large amounts of electricity to form straight-up lightning bolts or controlled energy where he can condense electricity and form it into shapes - thereby creating an arm for his right shoulder which he can control.
Weaknesses/Limitations/Drawbacks: I know what you're thinking, and I'm telling you now that it's wrong: water does not fry him. Short-circuiting occurs in a circuit-board. Point A carries 5 volts to point B. Point C carries 10 volts to point D. When water gets into the circuit-board, it gets everywhere and there are no longer any channels. So 10 volts from point C gets sent to point B, which is only capable of handling 5 volts. Point B gets fried, along with various other points, and the whole circuit shuts down. Peter doesn't have circuits. His entire body is an electrical boat. Now with that lesson out of the way, I will say that water provides complications regardless. For starters, he can't swim. He's too heavy. Water is conductive because of the minerals it carries, so water can mess up the direction and degree of control in which he can send the electricity. To clarify, let's take an obscure scenario so it gives you an idea what water does: a ball of water is suspended in the air. Peter's hand is in the water. He points out his finger and tries to shoot lightning. But it goes nowhere and nothing really happens. That's because the conductive water interrupts the flow of electricity and conducts it. Of course, lots of electricity creates lots of energy which can cause the water to evaporate, but it's still like an insulator. Being in water can still get you killed. Being in water can suck away the electric charge in Peter's hollow metal body. Rubber blocks electrical currents, of course. And quite frankly, strong electrical attacks like bolts and whatnot actually require a lot of electricity for Peter to use, which he must accumulate enough of through his natural generator (which will take a long time), or redirect a current to him by grabbing wires or something. Being struck by lightning or being overloaded wouldn't kill him, but it would cause stress on him if he doesn't dispel it. Peter lacks any form of regeneration and all damage is permanent provided there isn't someone capable of creating repairs through means of manipulating metal. Fortunately, he's pretty durable as is, but he is not indestructible.
Other: I kinda want it to be a running joke that he's this grown man in a terrible mix-up who's desperately trying to get back to his research and nobody believes that he isn't a student, so that he's a 41 year old doctor stuck around a bunch of super-powered high-schoolers and college-age kids.
What's up suckers? Should I bust out the Abraham or use another character? Solely Damon? I might just use one character to devote more time to them. Choose wisely. I could make a new one, but that'd take some brain-storming. And time. And I'm working tonight.
Woah, I just realized we have three characters with the last name Jones.
I hope nobody calls each other by last name.
I hope nobody calls each other by last name.
Name: Mia Jones
Codename: Machete
Age: 26
Power: Mia possesses your typical super-strength and insane reflexes, as well as various other improvements upon her body. She can rip down your door with ease, turn over a car, and kick your head off your shoulders. Her strength is not derived from over-inflated muscles, but her dense muscle strands being capable of exerting a hundred times more force than the average man - enough to bench press at least 17,500 lbs (or African elephant - and then some). As for her reflexes, she is capable of reacting to events as soon as they come to her senses or sees it coming and so on. While she can't dodge bullets, she can retaliate against her assailants as soon as they come within arm's reach. As for her other traits, the endurance upgrade that comes with Quartz had issued her greater endurance than the standard. While not invulnerable and still very much prone to gun shots, she is capable of tanking a professional boxer's punch to her abdomen without flinching and shaking off bare knuckle punches - this applies to aerobic endurance, allowing her cardiovascular system to become less winded with greater physical exertion. And of course, whenever she hits her shin on something by accident and it hurts like hell, she can rest easy knowing that whatever she kicked was probably demolished.
Appearance: Mia, a 5'9" woman weighing 198 lbs, appears well built and physically toned. While not having a body builder form, her muscles are thick enough to accentuate and tone her modest curvature. She is strong without working out, and it shows through her physique (it ain't washboard, but the woman has got abs). As implied above, she is not impressively tall, though nor is she short enough to give a weak or vulnerable vibe. Much of her weight comes from her power, having dense muscles and bones. Her skin is mostly clear of blemishes, save for the obvious scar on her face - and speaking of her face, it is particularly pronounced and gives the impression of an independent woman. Her jawline is strong and symmetrical and meets up at a pointed, yet squared off chin. This feature is accentuated by thin cheeks and sharp cheek bones, and lips several shades lighter - a trait hidden by dark makeup that is applied to her lips, a gentle black that doesn't shine or gloss under light, nor sticks out like a sore thumb on her brown face. Her nose is also sharp. It's length isn't pronounced, and appears proportionate to her face and her bridge thick, though thin in width. Given these sharp features and fierce, striking appearance, her eyes are an alarming contrast. Her left eye is nearly stark white. With a milky cornea and cataract-afflicted pupil, her eye is totally blind. Her right eye is covered by a scar that goes down to the top of her cheek. The same ugly scar rips through the center of her eye, making her blind in that eye as well. Her face alone is an unnerving combination of beauty and danger, despite her disability.
Her black hair is usually well-managed and clean (meaning very little oil, if any), often done up in something like an updo of an undercut mohawk, generally done with very little product. Given how it's easy to do, where the hair doesn't bother her face, and supposedly looks good and isn't impractically long, Mia found it to be well suited for her. She has a soldierly posture: her head held high, firm soldiers, straight back, and a heavy footstep. It suggests she knows discipline, a factor that likely sculpted her in her early childhood. Her abdomen is ripe with muscle, she carries c-cup breasts that she does not flaunt, and her legs are strong and have only a few scars from minor injuries such as scraping a shin or knee by accident. Her feet can be considered large, and are fortunately not affected by dreaded bunions. She has a few piercings. One is a half-ring septum piercing and three small loops on her left ear's upper lobe. They are all made of brass.
Given her lack of sight, Mia has a pretty weak sense of fashion. Fortunately, she already had a wardrobe before she lost her sight. At the bare minimum of clothes, she always wears a sports bra and men's boxer briefs, thinking they're more comfortable than other under garments. Over that, a men's tank top is worn over her torso, and she dons a pair of Lee's boot-cut jeans. Over her white shirt, she tends to wear a fleece flannel shirt, due to the comfort and warmth it provides (she remembers her favorite one having a yellow and black color scheme but can't really tell which is which anymore). Should the weather get any worse than that, she has an old brown leather jacket she got from her husband when they were younger. She tends to wear this pair of light brown unstylish work boots because they're comfy and firm and she has no clue how ugly they actually are.
Personality: Spiteful, contemptuous, driven; strangers often characterize her as enigmatic and scornful. She reveals nothing and manages most people with disdain. This disdain, however, is mysteriously sourced and gives the impression it stands as preexisting stress and is redirected towards whomever spoke to her. Other times, she simply ignores them or gives them the silent treatment. On any other occasion, she simply shares short, brief words and returns to her thoughts. She lacks the arrogance or overconfidence some superpower test subjects may come to don, however, has the tendency to peg others as fools. She bides and listens, and she isn't one to put her trust into another very lightly. Morever, Mia is incredibly driven. She doesn't let on to others what her reasons might be, but she moves forward with such inspiring conviction despite the obstacles set before her.
She had a good deal of morals before, and though her attitude and outlook took a major turn for the worse, they still stick with her to some degree. While no longer being interested in politics, she'd still be more prone to vote liberal. While no longer concerned about most peoples' welfare, she'd beat the crap out of a rapist. And while hurt feelings no longer bother her, she'd still make a sexist or racist person buckle over and plant her foot on them. She has morals - they've just become become much looser than they were before. She thinks little of Obsidian, and will carry out orders not out of faith or loyalty, but because it is a job. She also hates the chip coursing through her blood stream, as she feels it makes her unable to walk out should she no longer be interested in remaining acquainted with Obsidian - it removes any freedom or ultimatum of leaving, and taking away options makes her rather bitter.
Despite her feelings for most other people, she actually treats them with apathy more than she does in deliberately rude gestures or words. This gives her an unmatched degree of bluntness and ability to speak her mind without caring who is listening or how they may react or feel according to her words. Before the accident, she was deeply in love and was incredibly faithful and protective of her spouse. To some extent, this may hold true even now should she ever find a sense of belonging. Even if she does though, she reassures herself that there isn't any point in trusting anybody with her story. Her story is no one's business and she does not intend on "opening up" or getting "touchy feely" with anybody. However, her energy is drained and she finds herself in an incredibly vulnerable position, despite her greatest efforts to appear strong. While Mia still able to maintain the facade of strength and durability, there's little she can do to escape the sense of a downward spiral towards an emotional breakdown.
Strengths and Weaknesses: Aside from the powers the Quartz serum provided her with, she has additional physical strengths, having taken a martial arts course in krav maga. But Mia is also pretty intelligent, though it doesn't often show through her silence and bitter comments. She's clever enough to make her own plans and to make short-term strategies, as well as to banter with the best of them. She is also very suspicious by default, skeptical of most people she comes across and has something of a bullshit sensor, though not quite as finely tuned as Leila's. She has a very strong sense of realism (border-lining pessimism by how she states her stance) that can be very grounding to those who might get their hopes up. She has enough mental endurance to withstand torture or resist persuasion. She is very in tune with the rest of her senses - hearing, smell, sense of touch, sense of location and body, and adjusted to rely on these senses to try and observe the world around her without her sight. As a result, sneaking up on her might be more difficult, as she is more in tune with her instincts and sense of hearing than most people.
As for her weaknesses, her blindness goes without saying. A blanket of darkness acts as a permanent veil to the world outside her eyes. Mia is also a pretty bitter woman, and this makes diplomatic missions more difficult for her. While she can cooperate, she won't hide her disdain from the people she is working with. She also is not a very good shoulder to cry on should any of her team mates be experiencing any difficulties or stress - most of her motherly instincts have been forsaken. But when it comes to small children who might be in danger, she gets a twinge of frustration with herself until she brings herself to protect them. Senseless crying, though? Rolling her eyes or perhaps snapping at them. She also is not fit for a leadership role. She prefers to cut the garbage and get straight to the point and isn't interested in uplifting speeches or being bothered with telling everyone what they have to do. It just isn't in her. She is rather outspoken in her lack of love for authority figures, namely police forces. Her bitterness and disregard can be used against her, since when she becomes especially pissed off, she has a pretty "straight-line" train of thought.
History: The layout is simple: Mia had a pretty good life until her twenties. She was happy as a little girl. Got attention from her parents, and was pushed into more boyish activities by her father, who had wanted a boy. As naive as Mia was, this didn't really bother her very much and led a pretty normal life. She had a fair amount of friends from elementary and throughout high, was adept at taking apart her dad's truck and putting it back together, was persuaded by her mother to take up painting (and much to Mia's surprise, she enjoyed it). When she got into high school, Mia was fairly pretty enough to grab the attention of a couple boys and tough enough to keep them in line. At sixteen, she met a white boy named Roy,and started off as friends before she discovered she liked him halfway through the year. A lot. Taking him to meet the folks was a bit odd, since interracial relationships was a bit iffy to her parents, but she went ahead and scoffed at their conservative beliefs. It turns out that the two fit together like puzzle pieces. The two crucial pieces of a complex game where each individual piece of the map had to be worked around the two.
There was little to stop the two young and starstruck lovers from planning out their future. As fate would have it though, the James Grey factory explosion irreparably damaged a section of Aurum City and harmful radiation flooded her and her parents' townhouse in uptown Aurum. Roy was "lucky" enough to live in the downtown section, further away from the blast. Mia's parents worked nearby, leaving Mia alone when she had to be rushed to a hospital. When Roy checked on her, there it was discovered that while she didn't suffer immediate damage from the blast, the radiation had brought damage to her ovaries and one of her kidneys. She would be able to live happily with only one kidney as long as she didn't drink, but any chance of bearing a child was gone. Having kids was never really something they thought about anyways, and that news wouldn't bother them until their later years when they realized what it actually meant. Her parents were permanently hospitalized - her father was put into a coma, and her mother suffered so much radiation she was forced to stay on life support to survive. Roy and his family offered to help Mia and by allowing her to live with them in LA. It was only when Mia and Roy were nineteen did they decide to move out. They were done with school and they rented out a small apartment on the border of downtown for just the two of them. Mia worked at a garage and Roy worked kitchen jobs. Even with their small incomes together, they couldn't afford college for even one of them, but they decided to just save their money and be happy with what they had. They finally married when they were twenty years old.
The following two years were fine. They excelled at their jobs, they got hobbies, they biked around town (Mia always being a couple lengths in front of Roy), and all seemed fine. At some point during the second year though, normal life seemed to fall apart. There had been increased gang activity further down town, and Mia must have made a wrong stop or bought groceries at the wrong store - something must have been a front or connection that made a branch of the LAPD crack down and target Mia, who believed her to have ties with the Bloods - she figured they either had to have been pretty scared or itching to exercise their authority to target someone without any solid ground (she always said it was because she was WWB; walking while black). Regardless of their reasons, they interrogated Mia. They asked her all sorts of questions - about the Bloods, about her ties - having no connection with the Skulls, she denied any knowledge of them or their intents. They didn't believe her. They suspected her of lying and deceit and was promptly subjected her to torture. Most of their methods had limited or brought no scarring, but another over-enthusiastic cop brought up the method was laser-eye torture. This is how she lost sight in her left eye.
Roy finally discovered she had been arrested due to allegations of association with the Bloods. Along with vouching for her, he provided her medical records and legal records where there were no signs or ties with the local Bloods. She was released and subsequently promised insurance benefits in the form of large sums of monthly payments as long as she remained quiet about the misunderstanding. Mia was by no means willing to satisfy the police department, and neither was Roy. However, they decided that they were best off to accept the compensation and avoid further trouble with the department, despite the couple's seething rage for the new-found police force - they also needed the money. The next four years went somewhat smoothly, despite the burning hot bouts of rage she felt each time she looked in the mirror and saw her blind eye. She was forced to keep a cap on it lest she do something stupid and create more problems for herself and the LAPD.
But the four years were smooth, aside from that. She learned how to move around and grab things without her left eye, she became a little more reliant on other senses - most notably her hearing - and she found an outlet for her aggression in a martial arts class. Her and her husband both that that signing up for a krav maga course was a good idea, but that she should be careful with letting off too much steam. Mia agreed and so the twenty-five year old went on to visit the dojo every Tuesday and Thursday. Hearing about some charity advocating the aid of victims from gang fights and police brutality, hearing and what they stood for, she and Roy immediately supported them, and while Mia wasn't active in their cause, she was still eager to help them out in some way. For instance, fixing some of their vehicles. The work was hard, their vehicles were different and required a little bit of learning, but she still felt pretty honored to help them out.
It was at the end of the four years, six months before now, Roy was out shopping and doing errands for a couple of friends in the neighborhood. Upon coming back, he found himself in the middle of a firefight that seemed to have spontaneously broke out downtown. Gang members were holing up in their apartment disguised hideouts and the police forces stormed through in what seemed like seconds. Caught in the crossfire, Roy was killed, shredded by bullets from one direction and bullets from the other.
The firefight lasted a grueling three hours before it calmed down, too long for a wounded man like Roy to endure. Mia received a call from the hospital to give her the grim news. Heartbroken, Mia trashed the house and, in a fit of rage and grief and guilt, she grabbed one of the apartment's kitchen knives and carved her remaining eye. She stayed there, laying on carpet weeping and bleeding for a solid hour, pale faced. A solid hour before a neighbor decided to find out what was the ruckus was about. A solid hour before an ambulance was called for her.
Mia is now totally blind. She stayed in the hospital for about a month, being treated for her eye, as well as undergoing mental recuperation to recover from the shock of suddenly losing her only loved one. After her month was over, she was issued a cane and she stayed in her old, trashed apartment for another month, doing just the bare minimum to survive - and struggling to do even that now that she was blind. On her second month staying at home, she finally began to try mimicking daily life, despite the struggle to figure out what was around her. It took a while for her to walk comfortably whilst blind, and for her to remember how the house felt through her cane. It was by the end of that second month was she able to regain control of herself and understand the situation in full: the LAPD - they killed him. It was their fault. Their fault for her husband, their fault for her eyes - all of it! Whatever rage or contempt she had before was dwarfed by the pit of burning coals that sat in her chest every day. By the fourth month she went back to the dojo (albeit with some struggle - she would later acquire a device that would help her navigate the city, like a hand held GPS). With some effort, the instructor was able to help her work around her blindness.
The dojo became a regular outlet for her. She took out her aggression there (on punching bags, of course), honed her other senses through sparring sessions (sense of hearing, place, and the length of her body), and learned how to control her strength and how to make the most of it. She invested so much time into that dojo, she became capable of reacting as swiftly to the movements she hears from the other students as they could by sight, and she learned maneuvers to help her work around the possibility of an assailant holding a weapon to her. While the dojo helped her live with her blindness, it did little to satiate her anger. The blind woman saw opportunity with the Bloods, and while she cared very little for them, she wanted some way to get back at the police department and through the Bloods, that was possible. So she sought to waltz right into their base and demand a place. Which sounds arrogant, but her demands stem from anger and desperation, as opposed to arrogance - before that could happen, she was found by an Obsidian representative. Given how she had so little to lose at this point, she figured why the hell not and went ahead.
Other: Despite being blind, her sparring matches has helped to give her a "battle-sense". Much of this has to do with sense of hearing (their footsteps and breath), and feeling and hearing the subtle differences in the air, but it is something more innate than just that. Much of her fights run off instinct, and she describes it as having something like a flow.
Codename: Machete
Age: 26
Power: Mia possesses your typical super-strength and insane reflexes, as well as various other improvements upon her body. She can rip down your door with ease, turn over a car, and kick your head off your shoulders. Her strength is not derived from over-inflated muscles, but her dense muscle strands being capable of exerting a hundred times more force than the average man - enough to bench press at least 17,500 lbs (or African elephant - and then some). As for her reflexes, she is capable of reacting to events as soon as they come to her senses or sees it coming and so on. While she can't dodge bullets, she can retaliate against her assailants as soon as they come within arm's reach. As for her other traits, the endurance upgrade that comes with Quartz had issued her greater endurance than the standard. While not invulnerable and still very much prone to gun shots, she is capable of tanking a professional boxer's punch to her abdomen without flinching and shaking off bare knuckle punches - this applies to aerobic endurance, allowing her cardiovascular system to become less winded with greater physical exertion. And of course, whenever she hits her shin on something by accident and it hurts like hell, she can rest easy knowing that whatever she kicked was probably demolished.
Appearance: Mia, a 5'9" woman weighing 198 lbs, appears well built and physically toned. While not having a body builder form, her muscles are thick enough to accentuate and tone her modest curvature. She is strong without working out, and it shows through her physique (it ain't washboard, but the woman has got abs). As implied above, she is not impressively tall, though nor is she short enough to give a weak or vulnerable vibe. Much of her weight comes from her power, having dense muscles and bones. Her skin is mostly clear of blemishes, save for the obvious scar on her face - and speaking of her face, it is particularly pronounced and gives the impression of an independent woman. Her jawline is strong and symmetrical and meets up at a pointed, yet squared off chin. This feature is accentuated by thin cheeks and sharp cheek bones, and lips several shades lighter - a trait hidden by dark makeup that is applied to her lips, a gentle black that doesn't shine or gloss under light, nor sticks out like a sore thumb on her brown face. Her nose is also sharp. It's length isn't pronounced, and appears proportionate to her face and her bridge thick, though thin in width. Given these sharp features and fierce, striking appearance, her eyes are an alarming contrast. Her left eye is nearly stark white. With a milky cornea and cataract-afflicted pupil, her eye is totally blind. Her right eye is covered by a scar that goes down to the top of her cheek. The same ugly scar rips through the center of her eye, making her blind in that eye as well. Her face alone is an unnerving combination of beauty and danger, despite her disability.
Her black hair is usually well-managed and clean (meaning very little oil, if any), often done up in something like an updo of an undercut mohawk, generally done with very little product. Given how it's easy to do, where the hair doesn't bother her face, and supposedly looks good and isn't impractically long, Mia found it to be well suited for her. She has a soldierly posture: her head held high, firm soldiers, straight back, and a heavy footstep. It suggests she knows discipline, a factor that likely sculpted her in her early childhood. Her abdomen is ripe with muscle, she carries c-cup breasts that she does not flaunt, and her legs are strong and have only a few scars from minor injuries such as scraping a shin or knee by accident. Her feet can be considered large, and are fortunately not affected by dreaded bunions. She has a few piercings. One is a half-ring septum piercing and three small loops on her left ear's upper lobe. They are all made of brass.
Given her lack of sight, Mia has a pretty weak sense of fashion. Fortunately, she already had a wardrobe before she lost her sight. At the bare minimum of clothes, she always wears a sports bra and men's boxer briefs, thinking they're more comfortable than other under garments. Over that, a men's tank top is worn over her torso, and she dons a pair of Lee's boot-cut jeans. Over her white shirt, she tends to wear a fleece flannel shirt, due to the comfort and warmth it provides (she remembers her favorite one having a yellow and black color scheme but can't really tell which is which anymore). Should the weather get any worse than that, she has an old brown leather jacket she got from her husband when they were younger. She tends to wear this pair of light brown unstylish work boots because they're comfy and firm and she has no clue how ugly they actually are.
Personality: Spiteful, contemptuous, driven; strangers often characterize her as enigmatic and scornful. She reveals nothing and manages most people with disdain. This disdain, however, is mysteriously sourced and gives the impression it stands as preexisting stress and is redirected towards whomever spoke to her. Other times, she simply ignores them or gives them the silent treatment. On any other occasion, she simply shares short, brief words and returns to her thoughts. She lacks the arrogance or overconfidence some superpower test subjects may come to don, however, has the tendency to peg others as fools. She bides and listens, and she isn't one to put her trust into another very lightly. Morever, Mia is incredibly driven. She doesn't let on to others what her reasons might be, but she moves forward with such inspiring conviction despite the obstacles set before her.
She had a good deal of morals before, and though her attitude and outlook took a major turn for the worse, they still stick with her to some degree. While no longer being interested in politics, she'd still be more prone to vote liberal. While no longer concerned about most peoples' welfare, she'd beat the crap out of a rapist. And while hurt feelings no longer bother her, she'd still make a sexist or racist person buckle over and plant her foot on them. She has morals - they've just become become much looser than they were before. She thinks little of Obsidian, and will carry out orders not out of faith or loyalty, but because it is a job. She also hates the chip coursing through her blood stream, as she feels it makes her unable to walk out should she no longer be interested in remaining acquainted with Obsidian - it removes any freedom or ultimatum of leaving, and taking away options makes her rather bitter.
Despite her feelings for most other people, she actually treats them with apathy more than she does in deliberately rude gestures or words. This gives her an unmatched degree of bluntness and ability to speak her mind without caring who is listening or how they may react or feel according to her words. Before the accident, she was deeply in love and was incredibly faithful and protective of her spouse. To some extent, this may hold true even now should she ever find a sense of belonging. Even if she does though, she reassures herself that there isn't any point in trusting anybody with her story. Her story is no one's business and she does not intend on "opening up" or getting "touchy feely" with anybody. However, her energy is drained and she finds herself in an incredibly vulnerable position, despite her greatest efforts to appear strong. While Mia still able to maintain the facade of strength and durability, there's little she can do to escape the sense of a downward spiral towards an emotional breakdown.
Strengths and Weaknesses: Aside from the powers the Quartz serum provided her with, she has additional physical strengths, having taken a martial arts course in krav maga. But Mia is also pretty intelligent, though it doesn't often show through her silence and bitter comments. She's clever enough to make her own plans and to make short-term strategies, as well as to banter with the best of them. She is also very suspicious by default, skeptical of most people she comes across and has something of a bullshit sensor, though not quite as finely tuned as Leila's. She has a very strong sense of realism (border-lining pessimism by how she states her stance) that can be very grounding to those who might get their hopes up. She has enough mental endurance to withstand torture or resist persuasion. She is very in tune with the rest of her senses - hearing, smell, sense of touch, sense of location and body, and adjusted to rely on these senses to try and observe the world around her without her sight. As a result, sneaking up on her might be more difficult, as she is more in tune with her instincts and sense of hearing than most people.
As for her weaknesses, her blindness goes without saying. A blanket of darkness acts as a permanent veil to the world outside her eyes. Mia is also a pretty bitter woman, and this makes diplomatic missions more difficult for her. While she can cooperate, she won't hide her disdain from the people she is working with. She also is not a very good shoulder to cry on should any of her team mates be experiencing any difficulties or stress - most of her motherly instincts have been forsaken. But when it comes to small children who might be in danger, she gets a twinge of frustration with herself until she brings herself to protect them. Senseless crying, though? Rolling her eyes or perhaps snapping at them. She also is not fit for a leadership role. She prefers to cut the garbage and get straight to the point and isn't interested in uplifting speeches or being bothered with telling everyone what they have to do. It just isn't in her. She is rather outspoken in her lack of love for authority figures, namely police forces. Her bitterness and disregard can be used against her, since when she becomes especially pissed off, she has a pretty "straight-line" train of thought.
History: The layout is simple: Mia had a pretty good life until her twenties. She was happy as a little girl. Got attention from her parents, and was pushed into more boyish activities by her father, who had wanted a boy. As naive as Mia was, this didn't really bother her very much and led a pretty normal life. She had a fair amount of friends from elementary and throughout high, was adept at taking apart her dad's truck and putting it back together, was persuaded by her mother to take up painting (and much to Mia's surprise, she enjoyed it). When she got into high school, Mia was fairly pretty enough to grab the attention of a couple boys and tough enough to keep them in line. At sixteen, she met a white boy named Roy,and started off as friends before she discovered she liked him halfway through the year. A lot. Taking him to meet the folks was a bit odd, since interracial relationships was a bit iffy to her parents, but she went ahead and scoffed at their conservative beliefs. It turns out that the two fit together like puzzle pieces. The two crucial pieces of a complex game where each individual piece of the map had to be worked around the two.
There was little to stop the two young and starstruck lovers from planning out their future. As fate would have it though, the James Grey factory explosion irreparably damaged a section of Aurum City and harmful radiation flooded her and her parents' townhouse in uptown Aurum. Roy was "lucky" enough to live in the downtown section, further away from the blast. Mia's parents worked nearby, leaving Mia alone when she had to be rushed to a hospital. When Roy checked on her, there it was discovered that while she didn't suffer immediate damage from the blast, the radiation had brought damage to her ovaries and one of her kidneys. She would be able to live happily with only one kidney as long as she didn't drink, but any chance of bearing a child was gone. Having kids was never really something they thought about anyways, and that news wouldn't bother them until their later years when they realized what it actually meant. Her parents were permanently hospitalized - her father was put into a coma, and her mother suffered so much radiation she was forced to stay on life support to survive. Roy and his family offered to help Mia and by allowing her to live with them in LA. It was only when Mia and Roy were nineteen did they decide to move out. They were done with school and they rented out a small apartment on the border of downtown for just the two of them. Mia worked at a garage and Roy worked kitchen jobs. Even with their small incomes together, they couldn't afford college for even one of them, but they decided to just save their money and be happy with what they had. They finally married when they were twenty years old.
The following two years were fine. They excelled at their jobs, they got hobbies, they biked around town (Mia always being a couple lengths in front of Roy), and all seemed fine. At some point during the second year though, normal life seemed to fall apart. There had been increased gang activity further down town, and Mia must have made a wrong stop or bought groceries at the wrong store - something must have been a front or connection that made a branch of the LAPD crack down and target Mia, who believed her to have ties with the Bloods - she figured they either had to have been pretty scared or itching to exercise their authority to target someone without any solid ground (she always said it was because she was WWB; walking while black). Regardless of their reasons, they interrogated Mia. They asked her all sorts of questions - about the Bloods, about her ties - having no connection with the Skulls, she denied any knowledge of them or their intents. They didn't believe her. They suspected her of lying and deceit and was promptly subjected her to torture. Most of their methods had limited or brought no scarring, but another over-enthusiastic cop brought up the method was laser-eye torture. This is how she lost sight in her left eye.
Roy finally discovered she had been arrested due to allegations of association with the Bloods. Along with vouching for her, he provided her medical records and legal records where there were no signs or ties with the local Bloods. She was released and subsequently promised insurance benefits in the form of large sums of monthly payments as long as she remained quiet about the misunderstanding. Mia was by no means willing to satisfy the police department, and neither was Roy. However, they decided that they were best off to accept the compensation and avoid further trouble with the department, despite the couple's seething rage for the new-found police force - they also needed the money. The next four years went somewhat smoothly, despite the burning hot bouts of rage she felt each time she looked in the mirror and saw her blind eye. She was forced to keep a cap on it lest she do something stupid and create more problems for herself and the LAPD.
But the four years were smooth, aside from that. She learned how to move around and grab things without her left eye, she became a little more reliant on other senses - most notably her hearing - and she found an outlet for her aggression in a martial arts class. Her and her husband both that that signing up for a krav maga course was a good idea, but that she should be careful with letting off too much steam. Mia agreed and so the twenty-five year old went on to visit the dojo every Tuesday and Thursday. Hearing about some charity advocating the aid of victims from gang fights and police brutality, hearing and what they stood for, she and Roy immediately supported them, and while Mia wasn't active in their cause, she was still eager to help them out in some way. For instance, fixing some of their vehicles. The work was hard, their vehicles were different and required a little bit of learning, but she still felt pretty honored to help them out.
It was at the end of the four years, six months before now, Roy was out shopping and doing errands for a couple of friends in the neighborhood. Upon coming back, he found himself in the middle of a firefight that seemed to have spontaneously broke out downtown. Gang members were holing up in their apartment disguised hideouts and the police forces stormed through in what seemed like seconds. Caught in the crossfire, Roy was killed, shredded by bullets from one direction and bullets from the other.
The firefight lasted a grueling three hours before it calmed down, too long for a wounded man like Roy to endure. Mia received a call from the hospital to give her the grim news. Heartbroken, Mia trashed the house and, in a fit of rage and grief and guilt, she grabbed one of the apartment's kitchen knives and carved her remaining eye. She stayed there, laying on carpet weeping and bleeding for a solid hour, pale faced. A solid hour before a neighbor decided to find out what was the ruckus was about. A solid hour before an ambulance was called for her.
Mia is now totally blind. She stayed in the hospital for about a month, being treated for her eye, as well as undergoing mental recuperation to recover from the shock of suddenly losing her only loved one. After her month was over, she was issued a cane and she stayed in her old, trashed apartment for another month, doing just the bare minimum to survive - and struggling to do even that now that she was blind. On her second month staying at home, she finally began to try mimicking daily life, despite the struggle to figure out what was around her. It took a while for her to walk comfortably whilst blind, and for her to remember how the house felt through her cane. It was by the end of that second month was she able to regain control of herself and understand the situation in full: the LAPD - they killed him. It was their fault. Their fault for her husband, their fault for her eyes - all of it! Whatever rage or contempt she had before was dwarfed by the pit of burning coals that sat in her chest every day. By the fourth month she went back to the dojo (albeit with some struggle - she would later acquire a device that would help her navigate the city, like a hand held GPS). With some effort, the instructor was able to help her work around her blindness.
The dojo became a regular outlet for her. She took out her aggression there (on punching bags, of course), honed her other senses through sparring sessions (sense of hearing, place, and the length of her body), and learned how to control her strength and how to make the most of it. She invested so much time into that dojo, she became capable of reacting as swiftly to the movements she hears from the other students as they could by sight, and she learned maneuvers to help her work around the possibility of an assailant holding a weapon to her. While the dojo helped her live with her blindness, it did little to satiate her anger. The blind woman saw opportunity with the Bloods, and while she cared very little for them, she wanted some way to get back at the police department and through the Bloods, that was possible. So she sought to waltz right into their base and demand a place. Which sounds arrogant, but her demands stem from anger and desperation, as opposed to arrogance - before that could happen, she was found by an Obsidian representative. Given how she had so little to lose at this point, she figured why the hell not and went ahead.
Other: Despite being blind, her sparring matches has helped to give her a "battle-sense". Much of this has to do with sense of hearing (their footsteps and breath), and feeling and hearing the subtle differences in the air, but it is something more innate than just that. Much of her fights run off instinct, and she describes it as having something like a flow.
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