Name: Chase Fletcher
Age: 18
Mutation:
Chase has the ability Reactive Evolution which enables his body to automatically adapt or change to any disadvantaged situation he is placed in. The ability is purely defensive, involuntary, and at times, unpredictable. Of course, the ability is not infallible and Chase is not immortal, but for the most part, it generally kicks in when Chase needs it. Example so far of the ability includes but is not limited to:
- Gills when underwater
- Fire-proof skin when exposed to it
- Night-vision when exposed to darkness
Knowledge of his ability is still limited due to the fact that he hasn’t truly explored or trained in it. It is possible that the ability might also be mental – much like the X-men member, Darwin – but it is unknown yet if Chase’s ability stretches as far.
Personality:
Chase can be determined to a fault. When he wants something to happen or wants to do something, he can easily become obsessive and generally won’t stop until he finds what he’s looking for or it is painfully obvious he cannot continue. When he gets into “that mood”, he can be very selfish– nothing matters other than his goal, not you, not them, not him, not anything. Outside of that, though, Chase isn’t really that bad of a guy. He can be a friend, give advice, and generally gets along with almost anyone. He has his sensitive subjects – like anyone else – but he’s not without empathy or emotions. He just loses track of things, sometimes.
And he is definitely not without passion. On the healthier side of things, Chase can put 110% of himself into almost anything he’s supposed to do. He loves reading and, though he won’t easily admit to it, writing and drawing. He’s not that big on sports, but he’s down for just about anything with friends. He loves the daytime just as much as he loves the night, and sun as much as snow. It’s difficult, outside of sensitive topics, to get him angry or upset. Thing is, though, when he does get upset, it’s not pretty. Some can go as far as to say he has anger issues, but again, it depends on who he talks to and what they talk about.
History:
Chase never knew his father, but he did know of him. His mother would tell him bedtime stories when he was young of the man who could leap over buildings or rescue children from fires – even lift things one hundred times his size. Of course, as he got older, almost all of those stories were counted as fiction, but the important parts were there: his father was a good man, putting many before himself, and above all, he loved Chase. Unfortunately, he died or disappeared or something that his mother refuses to talk about, so for the entirety of Chase’s childhood, it was just him and his mother.
And you know what? Is wasn’t that bad. Things were tough sometimes – money wasn’t the easiest to come by – but for a two person household in which only one person worked, they got along. Plus, Chase helped out wherever he could, earning the title “Mommy’s little helper” when he was five for picking up trash in the kitchen. Times were happy and not in the least bit confusing back then, but then things started to change.
It first happened on Chase’s tenth birthday. His mom had gotten together with the other parents and arranged a little birthday party out by the lake behind his house. Now, prior to the party, Chase had never been swimming, and as far as he was concerned, he didn’t know how to swim. But all of Chase’s little friends did know how, so for the day, Chase pretended he could while strategically avoiding the water. For the most part, it worked, and the boy stayed safe and dry, but then in an attempt at humor, a group of boys his age shoved him off the dock when he wasn’t paying attention.
Immediately, Chase began to panic, thrashing in the water and attempting to stay afloat. Unfortunately, by the time the parents noticed, he was already starting to sink. Holding his breath, the birthday boy slowly approached the bottom of the lake, already becoming lightheaded. For a split second, his small life flashed before his eyes, and when he could no longer hold his breath in, his body forced him to take another…
And yet Chase didn’t choke. He didn’t cough or suffocate or feel any difference between the breath underwater and a breath of air. If anything, he felt a strange sensation on each side of his neck, almost as if he were breathing from those points instead of his mouth or nose. Shocked at the revelation that he could breathe underwater, Chase brought his fingertips to the places on his neck that felt weird, becoming even more shocked when he found several long slits with flaps of skin barely covering them. Gills.
Just as he had recognized them, a larger hand seemed to reach out from above and grabbed his arm. Suddenly, he breached the surface of the water, and Chase quickly found himself back on the dock, wrapped up in a towel as well as his mother’s arms. Barely hearing the words of those around him, Chase could only numbly reach back up to where his gills were, and found nothing. Upon telling the story later to his mother in the privacy of their own home, she insisted that he must have been in shock and that it was simply impossible for someone to spontaneously grow gills. Despite his protests, she remained stubborn in her stance, and eventually Chase let it go, but it didn’t stop him from spending hours in the bathtub, exploring the possibilities of his newfound ability.
Ever since that event, smaller strange things started happening to Chase. Like whenever he would fall and scrape his knees or elbows, he never actually got scrapes. It happened so much, that Chase ran an experiment of sorts and saw that as soon as he hit the ground, the skin that made contact grew a brief shell of skin or something that acted as padding. It was the newest addition to his abilities until he found that fire elicited a similar response when it touched his skin. That and just little things made him realize that he automatically changed or adapted whenever something harmful or life-threatening occurred.
At the age of fifteen, he confronted his mother again, this time showing her what he could do. Her response was silence and a contemplative expression, something that Chase wasn’t exactly expecting. After a long while she just sighed and told him that she should have expected this. It was then that he learned that his father was a mutant and that some – but not all – of her stories about him had been true. She then explained to Chase what his options were – some form of charter school, hiding, or the mutant-human island country Genosha – and though she made it clear that she would prefer living in safety on Genosha, she also made it clear that this was Chase’s decision. He told her he would think on it, but eventually they did move to the island-country.
After living there for about a year, Chase began to receive a series of emails from someone who claimed to be a mutant as well, and was recruiting others for a team somewhat like the X-men of old. He talked to his mother about the opportunity and she warned him about strangers, all the while still maintaining that it was ultimately his decision. After several emails, Chase did agree to meet with this ‘X’ person and the rest is history.
