Appearance:
[img=http://assets-s3.rollingstone.com/assets/images/story/exclusive-album-stream-young-mans-ideas-of-distance-20110920/1000x306/main.jpg]

Name: Noel Shaw

Age: 17

Mutation: Super sensitive hearing. Sound wave manipulation.

Personality: Noel is quiet and gentle young man. He tends to find crowds stressful and unsettling, often this will result in him spending the majority of his time alone. He is lonelier than he will admit and eager to make new friends even though the majority of times his shyness tends to get in the way. Noel also looks up to Rob finding him much easier to speak with than X-23, who he finds intimidating and in general a bit scary. 

History: Noel grew up an only child in a small Colorado town. His parents, while both busy and career oriented, were wonderful kind people. The had the comfortable and serene lives that everyone hopes for. Shortly after turning fourteen Noel began suffering from severe migraines that left him bedridden. He would complain about things being too loud and even the slightest noise hurting his head. This persisted for the better part of a year with his parents taking him to doctors and specialists all over the state. Medications were prescribed, tests were run, and yet nothing helped, nobody had answers. Shortly before his fifteenth birthday Noel's condition seemed to miraculously improve. The migraines were fading and everything seemed to be returning to normal. That is until began to notice strange things about Noel. When around him everything seemed to be quieter and the closer to him you were the more muffled everything was. Despite this Noel would have no problems hearing or understanding what other would say, even though anyone standing next to him would need to strain to hear anything at all coming out of someone else's mouth. Under the guise of simply another check up with a doctor, an event with which Noel had become very used to, his parents had him tested for the X-gene. To their dismay their worst fears were confirmed, their son was a mutant. Things were happening to him that they could not even begin to understand and while it broke their hearts they decided that he would need to be sent to one of the special mutant schools where he would be taken care of and it coul dbe made sure that he wasn't going to become a danger to himself or anyone else. 

Noel's parents sat him down and did their best to explain to him what was going on. They told him about the 
schools for children like him, where he would be taught about his abilities and kept safe. They assured him that no matter what they loved him and that the last thing they wanted was for him to leave but sending him to the school was in all of their best interests. Despite their best efforts it was impossible for them to keep the hints of their fear from creeping into their voices. No matter how much truth there was to their affirmations of love, Noel could tell that they were still afraid of him and it hurt. That night in his room thoughts raced through his mind. He had heard stories about the mutant schools. A few years ago a girl from his school had been sent to one. While the stories kids passed around the hallways at school were certainly embellished, Noel was scared. He didnt want to find out for himself what the schools were like, and so scared both of the future and what he was Noel packed a small duffel bag with some clothes and a few small possesions with too much sentimental value to leave behind. For the first time attempting to control his new abilities he silently snuck out of the house, liberated his bicycle from the garage and simply rode away. 

For the next two years Noel found himself drifting from town to town, occasionally making friends and never staying long enough in one place for it to matter. He grew exponentially in his abilites. He found that he had the ability to control sound waves, dampening them or gently enhancing them. This made surviving on his own an easy task to accomplish. He had no trouble sneaking in adn out of stores unnoticed with whatever food or clothing he needed. At first this made him incredibly uncomfortable but as time went on the sharp stabs of guilt faded and he found himself becomming bolder and bolder until he was completely comfortable sneaking into people's homes looking for loose cash. As an amateur burgular Noel's track record was flawless. Not only had he learned to use his ability muffle his own footsteps and sounds but he had learned to sift through the ambient noise of his surroundings, tuning out and removing unimportant noises while focusing his incredible hearing on sounds hundreds of yards away. It this way that Noel managed to skirt along the edges of society drifting from Colorado down into New Mexico in search of warmer winters. This was where he was approached concerning the mutant cell operating in the New Mexico desert. While he had shown great progress in controlling his mutant abilities it was far from perfect. If he let down his guard muffleing the sound around him even the slightest bit a sudden loud noise could cause him intense pain. While this awful reaction to commonplace noises was brief, it was far from subtle tipping off anyone with an experienced eye that something was off with him. 

At first Noel was apprehensive about living with other mutants. Life on the street had taught him to be cautious and suspicious of everyone. But it was only a matter of days before his loneliness got the best of him and for better or for worse agreed to join the small mutant community. Living there he still mostly kept to himself, but simply being near others and knowing that they were mutants too, it was a wonderful feeling. He wasn't sure what the point of it all was, why these two people, X-23 and Rob, were taking in young mutants and caring them, but either wayit was the closest that he had felt to being at home in a long time. He particularly enjoyed the training sessions. X-23 and Rob constanly pushed him to do more, to be better, he had even learned to using his hearing as a sort of echolocation when in pitch black. It was their suggestion to attempt using his abilities in an offensive manner, creating a sound and using his wave manipulation to enhance it until it reached deafening levels. While the idea was exciting its execution was still something Noel struggled with. For every amount that he increased the volume of the sound he needed to increase the shielding for his own ears. It was a difficult exercise and multitasking that he hadn't quite gotten the hang of, but Rob was always encouraging. Noel was beginning to think he might like it here. 

[hider=Impressions] X-23 - Noel has the utmost respect for X and while he doesn't like to admit it finds her a bit terrifying. He appreciates what she does for the cell and the way she pushes all of the students to excel but all the same Noel does his best to fly under the radar, not wanting to become the focus of her displeasure any more than he can help.
Rob - Noel likes Rob. He is a kind man, easy to talk to and always ready with an encouraging word. He doesn't act too much like a teacher and is pretty tight-lipped about his past but Noel doesn't think much of it. He imagines they all have things in their past that they'd like to keep to themselves. He sure does.
Helena - Helena is confident, a natural born leader. At first Noel found found her commanding nature a little intimidating, but in his time at the Last Five has come to become much more comfortable around her. At first the idea of her telepathy seemed a bit weird to Noel, the idea that she could hear his thoughts, but it didn't take long for the idea to become less disconcerting. She's as genuine a person as he'd ever meet and Noel gets the impression that she genuinely cares about the other students. He'd gladly follow her orders in the field without hesitation.
 [/hider]