[u][b]Basic Information[/b][/u]

[b]Name:[/b] Ruben Geraltes Tarblatt

[b]Nickname/Alias/Etc:[/b] On more than one occasion, Ruben has been referred to by names such as “Meat” and “Metalhead”.

[b]Gender:[/b] Neither (formerly male)

[b]Age:[/b] 43

[b]Height:[/b] Six feet, seven inches

[b]Weight:[/b] 344.5 lbs.

[b]Status:[/b] New Teacher/Staff

[u][b]Appearance[/b][/u]

[b]Hair Color:[/b] Formerly light brown

[b]Eye Color:[/b] Formerly green

[b]Ethnicity:[/b] Formerly Caucasian

[b]Physical Appearance:[/b] Ruben’s “head” is hidden from view by his Brainvault. The rest of him is nothing but a disgusting slurry of raw meat and organs and sinewy bones and muscles. He shapes himself into the closest thing to a human body he can muster.

[b]Attire:[/b] The closest thing Ruben has to clothes is his Brainvault Type 2, a cranial device designed by his colleagues and modified by Ruben himself. It resembles a metal sphere with several ports and antennae protruding from it, a bumper system to protect from sudden impacts, a voice box that translates his verbal thoughts to comprehendible speech. Ruben wraps his body in gauze to keep his true form from public view, though it tends to seep after a while, meaning he has to reapply it often, especially after he changes form. It puts most people off, as you can imagine.

[u][b]Personality[/b][/u]

[b]Outward & Innate Personality:[/b] Towards others, Ruben is a kind and curious intellectual. He respects the nature and opinions of others and rarely, rarely displays a negative attitude. This is marred, however, by his appearance. Often taken for a monster at first glance, he usually has to be introduced by someone aware of his “condition” before he can formally introduce [i]himself[/i]. He enjoys interaction with others and values those who don’t judge him immediately for his bizarre appearance, or the cryptic and obscure mannerisms by which he speaks.

On the inside, Ruben is nothing but a constant thinker. He always scans his immediate surroundings, thinking about everything and everyone around him before himself. He is very analytical but does his best to keep his observations to himself unless someone brings them up.

[b]Hobbies/Interests:[/b] Ruben spends a great deal of his free time working on his Brainvault Type 3, an upgrade to his current rig which he theorizes will be able to protect him from psionic assault and manipulation, which he is still somewhat susceptible to. Besides that, he enjoys his research, maintaining his health, walking about, observing his surroundings, and chatting with others who allow him to.

[b]Skills/Talents:[/b] Ruben, being the studious and over-thinking sludge he is, has a knack for mind games and puzzles, able to solve them relatively quickly compared to others.

[b]Prized Possession:[/b] Ruben doesn’t necessarily hold any one object in great sentimental regard, but he does take extensive care of his Brainvaults, both the one he wears currently and the one he’s working on upgrading. He used to carry his original Brainvault as a reminder of the kindness his colleagues showed them, but he left it with them after he was invited to Academy 218. They considered it something to remember him by.

[b]Quote(s):[/b] “Meat. Bone. Flesh. Not forever. Not all. The mind, is. The soul, too.”

[b]History/Bio:[/b] Ruben Tarblatt was born in rural England, on the outer side of the country. He was raised by two loving parents along with his older sister Marietta, eleven at the time of his conception. Originally a mere farm boy, his youth was flooded with the ideas and intrigues of science and engineering, brought upon by rudimentary textbooks and posters he had beheld at his elementary school. His father, despite having no interest in any scientific fields, supported his son’s eagerness to do whatever he wished, confident he’d make a successful career out of it. Ruben soon devoted himself to the broad study of biology, at first simply intending to study human physicality. That changed, however, when he learned of meta-humans.

At such a young age, Ruben was bewildered by the stories he heard of people capable of bending reality, changing form, and mastering control over the elements. He studied meta-human energy, ashing, everything that was readily available to him. While this wasn’t really what his school was versed in teaching its students, he pursued it nonetheless. His family was less than keen on this, but they allowed it to continue. In his later teenage years, he applied for a scholarship to a university in the United States. He told his family that it would give him the chance to learn much, much more, and potentially enact the foundation of a career, perhaps as a doctor or some other form of medical researcher. In truth, he had heard of a program going on in the university that focused on understanding meta-humans, their abilities, origins, everything. It was the next best thing to the illustrious Academy 218, which he had absolutely no chance of attending thanks to his mundane genetics, much to his displeasure. It took some convincing, but the family eventually agreed, and off they went to live in America.

A time later, when Ruben was 22, he ended up as a junior researcher in the MHS (Meta-Human Studies) Program on the eastern coast of the US. His father got a job in a steel mill, and his mother stayed at home. By this time, his older sister had become rather distant from the family, claiming Ruben had taken control and didn’t care about their wellbeing. There was [i]some[/i] truth to her words, but her parents didn’t enjoy hearing it. She came back to the house less and less often and, eventually, left off on her own completely. Ruben, in all his blind eagerness to learn and progress, wasn’t made aware of his sister’s departure until after his mother passed away from old age. Ruben slowed down some at this point, returning to his home and comforting his grieving father. Hugo, however, didn’t seem to acknowledge his company like he used to. During this time, Ruben was offered a spot in an experimental trial as a lab assistant. The project was geared towards the creation of raw meta-energy and studying its uses and applications. Ruben was torn between accepting the offer or remaining with his estranged father and caring for him in his declining health and mental state.

Ultimately, Ruben took the offer and abandoned his father. Hugo died soon after, early one morning, alone and in his bed, having not eaten anything since his son left him. Ruben refused to dwell on the issue and completely devoted himself to the project.

Several years passed. Progress on the meta-energy project was slow and had reached a low point, almost on the verge of losing its funding and meta-human volunteers, most of which weren’t confident in the project in the first place. One night, Ruben had decided to stay in the lab late while his colleagues left. His spirits were already low, but that night, he got the kicker. While he was going over dead-end data readings over a vat of residual meta-energy combined with other experimental chemicals, he received an email from his sister. Hesitant, he opened the message.

[indent][i]Ruben,

I came back to the house last night. I thought I’d make amends with Dad after you left him. Try and patch things up. I came back and he’s not there. A neighbor who worked with him at the mill told me he’s dead and buried in the cemetery downtown. I ran to my car and I cried. I was so sad and angry at you, and I still am. I know I left Mom and Dad but I thought about it every day. You didn’t. I thought if I came back, nothing would happen. They’d be happy to see me but nothing would have changed for them. I’d still end up leaving, they’d still be together. But I at least wanted to do something for them after feeling so terrible about myself for so long. I don’t know if I should be angrier at myself for not going back sooner, or absolutely furious at you for not even caring. But there are so many other reasons. You pushed us to move to America for your own education, not mine, and not for Mom or Dad’s interests. You made them spend all their money on a dead-end project. And you abandoned them both in the end. Everything that happened was your fault. I thought I could forgive you years ago somehow, but because of all this, that will never happen. You’re horrible. You left Mom and Dad to die and you never even cared.

You’re not my brother. Don’t you dare respond to this.[/i][/indent]

That did it. Ruben normally would have just tried to shake it off but, this time, it pushed him over the edge. After a fit of hysteric crying and trashing the computer, Ruben pulled a gun meant for protection from the station drawer. He screamed at himself and fought between going through with suicide or backing out and remaining as miserable as he was. In the end, he weighed in favor of the former. Standing over the vat, he put the gun in his mouth and fired.

And he fell in.

The laboratory alarms sounded across the facility grounds. The project team were all alerted while they were asleep or out on the town for the night. When a few of them made it to the facility as quickly as they were capable of, they immediately found the vat and the… [i]thing[/i] that was inside. One of the researchers immediately activated the emergency bottom valve, no pipe present. The beheld the organism inside; a sopping mess of meat, flesh and bone, all somehow connected to a brain that seemed perfectly intact. Almost instinctively, they set up a crude but stable life support station and connected the brain to it. That same night, they learned that it was Ruben; they found his encased ID tag lodged inside the flesh, the protective cover able to withstand whatever turned him into… what he became. The next day, they set up a neural interface terminal and connected it to Ruben’s brain. When they questioned Ruben about what happened, about the gun… he didn’t tell them. He just kept begging them to find a way to “stabilize” him. He was in pain.

The project team then turned their efforts towards figuring out what happened to Ruben and how to stabilize him. They laid him out on a table and scanned him, discovering the neural tendrils reaching out from his brain stem. Ruben attempted to move them but was incapable of doing so. The team spent the next week gathering the appropriate materials to create the prototype “Brainvault”, or so they dubbed it. It was designed to sense Ruben’s thoughts and stimulate the tendrils through sheer thought alone, in order to perform action and movement. It took time, but they constructed the prototype and placed Ruben’s brain inside of it.

Miraculously, it worked.

Ruben was then capable of controlling the tendrils and, in sequence, controlling the slurry that surrounded them. He practiced over time, shifting and reworking his new “neural stem” in order to replicate a functioning, mobile body. After months of practice, he was able to create his own system of muscles, bones, nerves, everything. He couldn’t do it without the Brainvault, however, so he was forced to survive through use of a liquid nutrient which, thankfully, was easy to brew. The team eventually forgot about the night the incident occurred, more focused on helping Ruben adapt. As expected, however, the team’s efforts made public news.

People were bewildered at first, but in the wake of developing matters regarding meta-humans, Ruben’s condition didn’t seem so strange to them. They simply assumed he was another meta-human which, in a way, he had become. The residual meta-energy detected within his neural stem had given him the ability to “meld” with any organic material the stem touched. He discovered this when he managed to “peel back” the meat and flesh to reveal a tendril, and touched an amputated arm (which had originally come from a regenerating meta-human) on a sheer whim. He watched it connect to the tendril, and afterwards, assimilate with the rest of his form. Now, that was what scared the team at first, but Ruben assured them he wasn’t going to end up like the Thing. He was too rational for that, or so he claimed.

In the years that passed, Ruben became a figure of note on the topic of meta-energy studies. Using his ability to connect to other people’s minds through neural contact, an ability his colleagues theorized and asked him to test, he pooled together enough collective knowledge to advance his team’s research into residual meta-energy manipulation. This led to a relative breakthrough in regenerative medical technology and programs capable of assisting anatomical, biological, and cerebral class meta-humans in controlling and even advancing their abilities. This eventually caught the ear of the staff at Academy 218, and they invited Ruben to come to the island and tour the grounds, offering him the opportunity to bring some of his technologies there and perhaps even teach the students about his work.

Ruben, of course, accepted. After finishing the final touches on his second Brainvault, he bid his team farewell and began preparations for his trip and stay to Academy 218.

[b]Family:[/b] Hugo Tarblatt – father (deceased)
Amelia Tarblatt – mother (deceased)
Marietta Tarblatt – older sister

[u][b]Relationships[/b][/u]

[b]Hugo Tarblatt[/b] | [b]Neutral[/b] | [b]Father[/b] | “Father-flesh to me, of my too-solid form before. Buried, not forgotten. Gave joy to my interests before the meta had solidified, wished me unwise and to veer toward the mundane. Refused. Saw his heart slowly break, shattered, and wrought into dust. Often wonder… if I had said yes, what future for me would have come about?”

[b]Amelia Tarblatt[/b] | [b]Good[/b] | [b]Mother[/b] | “Mother-flesh. Always loved, dual within the spectrum between us. Never doubted. Never restrained. Always loved. Always… Even throughout her last bid of the temporal flow. Where by her, I was not.”

[b]Marietta Tarblatt[/b] | [b]Bad[/b] | [b]Older Sister[/b] | “Sister-flesh. Flesh that hates. Always hated. Hated me. Hated the meat. Hated the metal. Away, now. Far. To where… I dare not feign a guess.”

[u][b]Abilities[/b][/u]

[b]Power Class:[/b] Anatomical/Biological (7), Cerebral (3)

[b]Power:[/b] Ruben’s body is made up of a slurry comprised of both his meat, bone and flesh, and that of several bovines which he assimilated with years ago for utility purposes. Buried inside this slurry is a series of red stems that provide a neural link between Ruben’s brain and any organic matter he comes into contact with. This link, when not conflicted over by a separate consciousness, allows Ruben to control the slurry to almost no limit of extent, at least physically. He can mold the slurry into a pseudo-human body, or anything animalistic or otherwise that he is capable of perceiving, but is restricted to the overall greatest size he is capable of achieving. He can form muscles, joints, tendons, tendrils, bones, tissues, membranes, proboscises and many more, all with an accompanying gnashing, retching sound that can only be described as absolutely disgusting.

Ruben’s secondary ability, cerebral in nature, is more “intuitive”. The neural stems originating from his brain are capable of linking to other brains via physical contact. He can access other people’s thoughts, memories, dreams, nightmares, etc. This is, of course, seen as terrible violation of one’s privacy. Ruben never uses this ability unless he absolutely must, and only if he has the explicit permission of whoever is involved.

[b]Weaknesses/Limitations/Drawbacks:[/b] Being comprised of nothing but a slurry of organic materials, Ruben is, of course, susceptible to open flames and very high temperatures. As well, being frozen solid is something he doesn’t enjoy in particular. Ruben’s Brainvault is constructed in a way that it is capable of condensing the slurry inside to a smaller but equal-in-mass portion (with the help of a chemical that only he knows how to create), though this space is not unlimited. It expands when it exits the Brainvault, which Ruben has to shape into something quickly or else it will randomize its own physical outcome. As of current, the amount of slurry inside the Brainvault is at maximum capacity, meaning Ruben cannot assimilate with anything else without being forced to make it an extension of his exterior body.

[b]Other:[/b] Ruben is not necessarily a fan of Shakespeare, but he does find some sense of relation to an excerpt from Hamlet, Act I Scene II.

[i]O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d
His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God! God![/i]