Alias/Callsign: Void
Age: 48
Powers:
Shadow Step: Void's primary ability, the name is intentionally misleading. For the most part, it acts mainly as advanced invisibility, for all types of perception. This is true for all things capable of detecting him, not just humans. Machines, animals, even magical spells are unable to perceive his presence in any way while his power is active. This extends to things he's carrying, and anything he picks up. Things he lets go stop being affected.
Amnesia Aura: While his shadow step is active, it becomes impossible to directly record any aspect of his presence. Those who knew he was present become unable to remember he was with them. Direct results of actions he takes seem to have occurred sporadically, as completely natural results of preceding events. This ability also extends to things he brings into his possession while his power is active, changing immediate circumstances to believe whatever he brings into his possession were never present to begin with.
Weaknesses:
Degree of separation: While it is impossible to record his actions or perceive him directly, his power does have limitations. Anyone perceiving records of his actions, while unable to actually see him, are able to see the absence of him. In video recordings, anyone viewing an active feed would see him as a black void in the image-the origin of his alias. Going over the tape, however, would show no evidence of his presence to begin with. There are also various techniques and security protocols specifically designed to negate his ability and abilities like it. Those specific protocols are not entirely fail proof, and are often expensive, but have proven very effective in the past.
Only human: Even though he's undetectable, he's still just a normal person who is physically present. Explosions, bullet sprays, flame throwers, and similar weapons that damage everything in an area still damage him. Walls, hand cuffs, vault doors, and other physical barriers are all capable of restricting his movements.
Friendly fire: Void has a great deal of difficulty working with groups and teams. His power is not at all selective, and open battlefields pose an active threat to him as much as anyone. When a group he's with suddenly forgets his presence, plans they had made involving him only make sense until brought under scrutiny, at which point they seem massively flawed. He has learned some tricks over the years to deal with this, but if the methods get out they can be used by enemies, and like all forms of detecting him are also not entirely fail proof.
Appearance:
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 190 lbs.
Description: Caucasian male, late forties, of average height and weight. Dark brown hair with bits of grey, clean shaven. Wardrobe consists of suits of varying style, along with appropriate accessories-umbrella/cane, rings, watches, etc. Outfit always covers everything but hands, head, and neck.
Hidden: Body covered in ritualistic scars, tattooing, burns, and branding. A range of styles are present, often in patterns, without any discernible writing or apparent meaning.
Equipment:
Combat vest: A high grade bullet proof vest, worn under clothing. It is rated to stop knives, bullets, and protects against small to medium bits of shrapnel during explosions.
Shotgun: A short-barreled, 12 guage shotgun with pistol grip and folding stock. It can be fitted with an extended magazine, is usually equipped with a removable red dot scope, and can use a variety of ammunition, including; solid slug, pellets, breaching rounds, and dragon's breath rounds.
Worn in a back holster, fitted under his suit jacket.
Pistols: Two standard, black 10mm pistols. Can be fitted with silencers, or a tactical light. Uses standard 10mm rounds.
Worn in a chest holster, also fitted under suit jacket
Knife: An 8-inch combat knife, worn in an ankle strap. Made out of carbon fiber, and not detectable by standard metal detectors.
Memory rings: Five rubber rings, which can stretch up to five times their beginning size before risk of breaking. Made in bright, alternating neon red and yellow, each ring is meant to be worn somewhere in clear view to the person wearing it. Given to those he works with, they are meant to remind people that they are working with him when his power activates. While not perfect, it acts as a degree of separation which makes it possible to remember the concept of him, and how he might be an explanation for otherwise unexplainable events.
Origin:
Michael Davis was born to a wealthy British family, in the year 1999. They lived in London for several years, before moving to a remote, luxurious cabin in a forest in California. For the first ten years of his life, Michael lived an isolated, but otherwise ideal life in the woods. He had access to a wide library, a large selection of movies, a home gym he could play in, and even a small pool. Food was brought to them by a delivery van, which also brought them their mail and other necessities. While he often wished for friends-and had a habit of making imaginary friends-his parents were loving and attentive. Along with the older woman who acted as his private teacher and babysitter, he was never truly alone.
Things changed, abruptly, on the night of the first blood moon after his tenth birthday. While he was growing up, one night a week, every week, his parents left to go out without him. For him, this was a regular occurrence, and he never thought to question it. The truth, though, was that they would leave to take part in the rituals of a cult they had originally joined five years before his birth, in England.
That night, they took him from his bed, and dragged him into the basement where more than twenty other adults were standing around a massive circle on the floor. The circle was filled with strange symbols and markings, and the adults around it wore robes and masks, each holding a lit torch. For the next four hours, all of them watched, as Michael's parents 'betrayed the trust never questioned.' Every mark on his body; scars, tattoos, burns, brands. Each was made that night, by his mother and father, while a room full of strangers only watched.
The pain proved too much for a child. Paramedics who found him the next morning were amazed he was even alive. A trail of his blood had come from the cabin, which had been burned down, starting a fire that had brought a fleet of firefighters to the scene. The remains of more than twenty robes were found, in the concrete basement. Not a single body was uncovered, burned or otherwise.
After 'the incident,' Michael was taken in by the woman who had been his tutor. He went to counseling for years, until it was agreed the trauma he experienced was too dramatic for a child to properly handle. Having blocked it out, he seemed to others to be in denial of what happened. His tutor, of course, had been eager to adopt him. Thinking back on the incident, she always felt bad, visiting a child who had lived entirely on his own for so many years, only long enough to tutor him each day.
Michael grew up normally after that. It wasn't until his late teen years he discovered his powers. By then, he'd learned to love superheroes. He never knew why, but the thought of complete strangers saving people always connected with something deep inside him. Naturally, when he discovered his power, he wanted to use it to become a hero like a lot of other supers.
Things didn't work out for him, though. His power, while useful, always made him a better villain than a hero. People approached him, regularly, offering him money to do questionably legal things. It started with 'rescuing' a small boy who had been kidnapped. Later on, he found out it was his mother who had 'kidnapped' him away from his father. From there, things only got worse, until everything hit the fan in 2035. By then, he was already the lead suspect in dozens of criminal cases, with the only logic being that 'no one else could have done it.'
So, when everyone started to vanish, it was all too easy for him to fall in with the criminal world. He started doing what he had to, to maintain his cover and get by. For someone like him, it wasn't really hard. Within the first year, he had security agencies the world over coming up with ways to guard against him.
Personality:
Michael always wanted to be a hero. Having never known his birth parents, it was always the kindness of strangers that kept him going in life. He wanted to return that kindness for so long, and spent more years than he cares to remember trying. Deep down, he knows he still does. Life just didn't deal him that hand, though.
Having spent the last twelve years as a criminal, breaking more and more personal boundaries, he's become somewhat jaded. Over the years, he developed a very loose definition of an 'innocent' and let himself stop caring when some got hurt. Still, he always tries to help, where he can. Donating money he doesn't need to help people get by, and taking jobs that don't pay nearly enough because he feels bad for the client.
Misc Facts:
He's an alcoholic. Despite his British accent and mannerisms-which his adoptive mother always wondered about, as he never lived in England-that make him seem like a gentleman to many, he spends most of his time away from work drinking. With an assortment of various brands and vintages, hundreds of bottles are displayed in his personal bar. The bar being an entire underground apartment which, otherwise, houses only a bed, a bathroom, and about five years of combat rations.
He's quite wealthy, and has developed expensive tastes. While not rich by any means, a life of crime and an unexplained inheritance when he was young has paid for a good deal of luxury. Being a super, though, he has to enjoy it far away from the spotlight of the normal world.
Magic tends to interact strangely when it interacts with him. Generally, he is effected by it like any normal person. While they can't detect or record his presence, magical abilities and constructs interact with him normally otherwise. However, ongoing magics interacting with him while his power is inactive tend to 'glitch' if he activates his shadow step. The results are, usually, neither good nor bad, just sort of odd. As such, it's hard to classify as either a feature of his power, or a weakness he has to deal with.