Prometheus II

Capes of Samekh - A Post-Worm RP

Jackalope

"Fucking...ow..." Jackalope forced himself to his feet, a stabbing pain in his side - probably a cracked rib, fuck, exactly what I need shocking him into alertness in time to answer the Brute's question. "Um...Manifold? The Tinker? She was by the truck, and then there was the explosion, and it was falling, and she threw me, but..." His eyes widened as he put two and two together to come up with something in the vicinity of four. "Oh, shit! She's still under there!" He had to stop himself from reaching for his power - have to let the woman move around here too - and settled for a half-hobble, half-dive to get behind the truck while favoring his side. A moment later, he realized there was no way in hell he was lifting it, let alone helping Manifold out. He jittered nervously on the balls of his feet, glancing around. "Okay, um - you can get her out from under there, right? Okay. Fuck. Uh, mobile fortress? Any idea how far away? I just need a rough estimate - mile, two miles, less? I can help with that - and it'll probably be better than us all being in the same place - but I need to know how far to run." And hopefully it won't get another shot off before we can get moving...

Capes of Samekh - A Post-Worm RP

Jackalope

Perception in his breaker state was always...tricky. He'd never been able to measure what was actually going on inside his field when he used his power, but he was pretty sure that the human-shaped blob that was all anyone could see through the forcefield was just that - a basically featureless blob, not just a distorted view of himself. Which made him wonder how he was sensing anything, especially through the sage-green tint of his forcefield, and especially when those bullets passing by his head should have been too fast to track anyway.

He'd always found his mind wandering a bit in his breaker state, too, which was probably why he was so blase about the bullets.

Feeling his charge levels hit the point he was waiting for - about halfway - he doubled back in an instant U-turn that would have been impossible for a human runner. Yep, still got it. He poured on the speed, sprinting for the cover of the deaf Tinker's truck. It's gonna be risky - my shield's gonna be almost gone by the time I get there - but the less time I spend out here, the better. Let's hope this works.

Capes of Samekh - A Post-Worm RP

Jackalope bounced to his feet, glaring at the Tinker. "Okay, what the hell was that? I try to keep anyone from hurting themselves on my power, and -" He broke off as the other cape's hands moved in a flurry of strange gestures; he'd have suspected some weird Tinker control interface, but given her silence... "Shit. I don't know sign language. Okay, uh - my power trail can make a pretty good wall, keep the tanks from coming closer without getting diced up. Got a problem with -"

That was when another new cape seemed to...flow up next to them. Guess it was a Changer after all. "Call me Jackalope, it's pithier. Listen, I can cut off their advance - my trail's sharp enough to dice metal. Should make them hold still long enough for you to get in there for...whatever you're gonna do, and liquids don't cut so you'll probably be fine going through it. I'll hold off long enough for you to get in there." He dropped the Changer from his attention, noticing her flow off out of the corner of his eye. Focusing, he knelt, letting the tension of his power build. If I curve out the back here, swing back across the road, double back on myself, dive right as the bubble pops to get out of the line of fire...yeah, that should do it. Silently praying - to what, he wasn't sure - that the tanks wouldn't get a shot on him, he released his power, sending him blasting out of cover the opposite way he'd come in. Please don't let them screw this up...

Capes of Samekh - A Post-Worm RP

[whoops, forgot Manifold used sign language, need to rewrite this and I don't know how to delete a post so just leaving it edited]

Capes of Samekh - A Post-Worm RP

Tanks?

Fucking tanks?

Hell, and Will had thought the one raider group with an APC was bad. Did they really have zero capes looking out for shit like this? And I thought this was supposed to be the big city.

Or maybe they did - he thought he spotted at least two other capes dealing with them. No, wait - three, assuming that weird sludge was a Changer rather than some Tinker bullshit. Okay, that meant he couldn't just dash in head-on. He'd have to try to cut around, time things to land right next to the pair by the car...yeah, that'd do it. Then he could make sure nobody was stupid enough to put a hand in his trail or anything, and not block the Tinker's line of sight. Right. Plan made. Get your ass in gear, hero boy.

His power helped him pick out the rough distance he'd need to go, estimating a good few minutes at about middling speed, slowing down near the end. A smile tugged at his lips as he flipped down the mini-binoculars of his multitool and stowed it in his belt. He knew he shouldn't really be thinking this way...but damn, was it going to be good to deal with some bastards with actual law enforcement to take care of them afterward. Settling his helmet, he crouched down, arms out in a runner's crouch that didn't help at all but just felt right. His power responded, an energy seeming to grow stronger, stronger...and release!

(And in his breaker state, with that peculiar bit of disinhibition he only felt like this, he could finally admit - it was going to feel good to do something other than just run from town to town, too.)

He curved wide around the main road at a healthy speed he estimated to be around 75 mph, approaching the stopped car from the side, ahead of the oncoming tanks. Within a few yards, he braked, slowing the...whatever it was that kept him going...down to his minimum speed. Despite that, he still had to weave a little bit to burn the last of his charge before he could come closer and pop out. I'm out of practice. Ignoring the trail behind him, he strode up to the Tinker standing on the car's roof - the other cape was apparently attacking the tanks with her bare hands, for some goddamn reason. Brute, I guess. "Alright, introductions. I'm Jackalope, those tanks are a fucking problem, and you're the heroes stopping them. Good, introductions done. Want me to make a trail around them, or do you have a plan already?"

Capes of Samekh - A Post-Worm RP

JACKALOPE

"Citizen, I'm here to help! ...pfft, sorry, couldn't keep a straight face."

Hider

_{[ ♦ ] Bio}

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♦ Name: William Varnen
♦ Age: 22
♦ Loyalty: Nominally independent, loosely associated with PRT
♦ Appearance: The first thing people tend to notice about Will is his build. Despite having passed that awkward pubescent stage of growth, he's still tall and gangly; he walks and stands like broomsticks held together with rubber bands, and while he does have some muscle from his time as a cape, he's just too long and lanky for it to show up much. His pale skin tends to burn and freckle rather than tan, leaving him looking like (in his own words) "a poorly cooked mozzarella pizza." He has curly brown hair, brown-green eyes, and a hawkish nose that only accentuates his bony appearance. He has a small burn mark on his left cheek, and a much larger one on his back - he prefers not to show the full extent of it, but it's visible on his left shoulder if his shirt is pulled down a little. Generally, he wears a printed T-shirt and jeans, maybe adding a brown-green hoodie or some other coat if the temperature drops, or exchanging jeans for cargo shorts if it rises - he doesn't care much for his appearance, other than not looking like a complete disaster.

In costume, he wears a fitted sage-green bodysuit, flexible brown boots with black soles, and brown gloves with black pads on the fingers and palm, plus a suit of PRT (or SWAT) standard body armor in brown with white panelling on the chest. He also wears a simple helmet that covers his face from the nose up as a "mask," also kept from his time with the PRT. Rather than limiting his vision with a pair of eyeholes or goggles, the mask has a one-way faceplate in a "band" at eye level, bracketed by the helmet's brow and the mask's "nose" (which also sits over his nose). A pair of decorative, rabbit-like "ears" lay against the sides of his head, angled up and slightly out from the corners of his eyes; a small pair of fake pronghorn "antlers" extend from his brow, laying against his head in line with the rest of his face.

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Picture: Don't actually have one for him, sorry

♦ History:

[+]

Will's life was fairly boring pre-trigger - he lived with his mother, his step-father (he doesn't really remember his birth father, nor - from what his mother has told him - does he want to), and his 10-years-younger half-brother in a calm Midwestern suburb with a low cape presence. The local villains had bigger, more interesting places to bother with than anywhere near Will's home, and the PRT outreach program (such as it was) was very much underfunded, so Will never much cared about capes. Then, at 14, his home caught fire, and he triggered trying to carry his baby brother out of the flames when a burning beam blocked his escape. (Yes, there was more to it than that, but a full trigger writeup would be looooong - I'll do that later.)

Joining the Wards wasn't really a question for him - going solo would have been too risky, and villainy wasn't going to happen. His parents moved closer to the city after the fire (partially motivated by his enthusiasm), so location wasn't an issue either. Working with other capes was difficult, mostly because there weren't exactly many of them in the relatively small city anyway, and their powers tended towards Brute effects that clashed with his trails; nevertheless, he managed to do fairly well, although not particularly outstandingly. He eventually graduated to the Protectorate, still believing that it was where he could do the most good even with the revelations about Cauldron, and was scheduled to move to another city deemed more at-risk, to his great excitement. Then the world ended.

In the revelations following Gold Morning, Will's perspective changed...not all that much, actually. From his point of view, he'd been giving his power just what it wanted, and didn't have much to worry about from it. He could still do his thing, still trap villains and protect those who needed protecting, and his powers would be even more useful with people scattered to different worlds and different places - less risk of collateral damage, AND the ability to get from place to place quickly without needing to worry about the aforementioned collateral damage? What's not to love? Since then, he's been wandering the various worlds colonized by Earth Bet refugees; he usually only briefly visits more well-settled worlds like Samekh or Gimel, but often stops by to deliver messages and restock his supplies. Given the rising troubles of Samekh, though, he may end up staying longer...

_{[ ♦ ] Personality}

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♦ Motivation: Will is a fairly simple person, all things considered. He's a strong supporter of the mass "second chance" for villains after Gold Morning, especially given how many of them have tried to go straight, at least in his experience (which may be colored by the fact that many villains who chose to go straight have retreated to the new settlements with fewer people that may know them, and he mostly visits the new setttlements). For those who don't, he tends to give them a warning after throwing a major wrench in whatever their scheme may be, reminding them that they don't get another chance after this one. If that doesn't work...well, he's uncomfortably aware that his powers are either highly lethal or mostly good for crowd control, and his best recourse against someone he's not willing to kill is trapping them in his trail and intimidating them. Usually, he puts a report in to the PRT, and hopes. He extends this policy to any crime he may encounter in Samekh, although it's a lot easier to call in reinforcements here. Overall, there are few things that anger him as much as someone screwing up not only their last chance but the chances of others as well, and he just wants to give the world - all worlds - a chance to grow without villain interference, and to do that, he'll go wherever he's needed.

♦ Derangement: It's hard to tell whether this is his power or just who he is, but he has a tendency to make snap decisions, leaning heavily away from getting caught in overthinking things. Has a minor phobia of fire, due to resiudal trauma from his trigger event.

_{[ ♦ ]
Parahumanism}

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♦ Skills: Oddly enough, he's a practiced handyman, and excells at jury-rigging or minor repairs, from sewing tears in his costume to fixing clogged pipes - picked up from his time "running circuit" and acting as a general problem-solver. Can also hold his own in hand-to-hand combat with a baton or a knife, but it's not his strong suit (especially not the knife).

♦ Classification: Breaker (Mover/Shaker)
♦ Mechanics: Before Jackalope enters his Breaker state, he defines a specific amount of "charge" he has to work with. He can't stay in his Breaker state once he runs out of charge, but he ALSO can't exit his Breaker state early (at least not voluntarily) and can't stop running while in his Breaker state. The Breaker state itself is a sort of Jackalope-shaped blur with a spherical force field around it; the field slowly degrades as he runs, leaving behind a highly visible, sparkling dust trail. In his Breaker state, his top speed is about 100 MPH, and his minimum speed is about 25 MPH. The force field is highly resilient to energy effects - fire, lasers, energy beams, Shaker effects - but relatively vulnerable to physical strikes, and someone with a large hammer could break it with a few good hits (depending on how much charge Jackalope has left). If the field breaks, Jackalope is forced out of Breaker state. Whether he leaves the state voluntarily or not, when he does, the "dust trail" he leaves crystallizes into razor-sharp (but easily breakable) glass-like shards, which disintegrate into dust in 5-10 minutes. The force field also detonates if forcibly broken; the concussive force of the explosion is always fairly weak, but it also sprays those same glass-like shards, with the quantity again being dependent on how much charge was left when the field was broken.

♦ Equipment:

ITEM: A PRT standard-issue hand-to-hand combat baton.

ITEM: A military surplus combat knife/multitool that sees more use as a tool than a knife.