Then one fine mornin' she puts on a New York station. You know, she couldn't believe what she heard at all! She started shakin' to that fine fine music- You know her life was saved by rock 'n' roll.
The Beat's a funny thing. Seems like one day, the Earth turned into the biggest concert in the history of history, and all of a sudden the world got split. You had those who could hear the beat, and those who couldn't. Those who could run with the beat, those who could hit with the Beat, those who could weave with the Beat, and those who couldn't to shit with the beat. Turns out, people didn't like that. But hey, we all know that the Beat's here for a reason, right? We're all hearing it for a reason.
Welcome to Rhythm of the Night! In the near future, people, quite out of nowhere, start hearing music. This music didn't come from a radio or a MP4 player, or really anything- it just was. Nobody heard the same tune twice. Nobody even heard it exactly the same. Every type of music from indigenous chants to choral hymns to heavy metal and industrial was heard, with no rhyme or reason. A classical music player might hear country, an ex-rockstar could hear gospel, the only similarities were that it was entirely instrumental- not a word in sight.
This was the Beat. The Beat of the Earth. Everyone that heard it gained magnificent new powers. There were the beatrunners, who heard the Beat as 'upbeat.' They were harder, better, faster stronger than the average person, often capable of pulling off tricks that would make even the most experienced streetrunner blush with little to no training. Then there were the beatsmiths, who heard the Beat as 'downbeat.' They gained superhero-like abilities, from mystical healing properties to the ability to send tremors through any surface. Finally, there were the electroweavers, who heard the beat as electronic music. These rare few gained the ability to use both up and downbeat music, however they also suffer from issues like Dischording- sending their powers into overdrive, or causing them to splutter out at random, or even change beat entirely.
However, with these powers came outrage. "They gained them unfairly." "They have no right to have these powers." "Fucking loser lucked out and started hearing the Beat." Prejudice and stereotyping is a real and powerful issue for those that hear the Beat, but more than that, these powers are often vilified. Of course, you've started to hear the Beat, so those issues are your issues too.
Hello folks! This will be a sorta-SoL RP, where the characters will be those who have started to hear the Beat, and gained the powers that come with it. How this new music fits into their lives, and what they do with their powers, whilst also attempting to conceal them, or even flaunt them, will be the main focus of this RP, so if secret superheroeing side-by-side with sprawling city shenanigans seems sufficiently succulent an RP for you (I really tried there folks,) then feel free to join!
I think I could work on it a bit more, but it should work for now.
Glenn Strivelyn
(So I know the picture is an android... Just pretend he isn't?)
Name: Glenn Strivelyn Gender: Male Age: 23 Appearance: As image. Usually has paint/clay stains all over him. Beat Heard As:Sludge Metal/Alt-Rock/Whatever this is Beathearer Type: Beatsmith.
Personality: Usually rather laid-back, but has anger issues. Most of the stuff he does he does on an impulse, but will commit to doing those things. Has a nigh unmatched passion for the things he cares about, and is strangely open to new ideas.
History:
Born and raised by a fairly well off, but manipulative family. He never wanted for much, except his own freedom. Due to this, he cultivated a rage inside of him as a teenager, which he channeled into his studies. As he left school he had no direction, so he enrolled in the only university that would take him, and picked a course at random. That course was in sculpture, and while he was skeptical at first it provided him with everything he wanted: A creative outlet, consistent medium, and a way to calm down.
After he got his masters in Visual Arts, specifically sculpture, he was lost again. In between sculpting projects, he got a job as a drug mule, which paid well but caused him quite a lot of stress. This was until he started hearing it. The Beat. It manifested as highly aggressive and distorted music, constantly rolling over in his head. He had heard of others gaining special powers from it, but he didn't seem to get anything. Well, until recently, that is. It started while he was sculpting. Little visible noises dancing around. Each emitted their own sounds, usually broadcasting the Beat he was hearing to his small room. They took very inconsistent forms at first, as they followed Glenn's beat. It took him a while, but he eventually cultivated the ability to zero in on a certain Beat. This developed a somewhat more physical and consistent construct, which he could somewhat control. He has far from perfected this, though. He often breaks concentration, or loses control of his construct, causing it to violently seize into a space of distortion.
Employment: Um... he's working on that. Currently just inconsistent drug-dealing. He makes very odd sculptures which don't have much of a mainstream appeal, but some are willing to pay money for them.
Accommodations: Shitty little studio apartment near a pub and a garden. The apartment has three rooms: A kitchen, a bedroom, and a toilet/shower room. It doesn't have a bath, so bathroom just doesn't feel right to him. Rent of $263 a week.
Transport: Public or legs. Eventually he may be able to create controllable platforms of Sound to ride on, but he's far from there yet.
Anything Else:
The What: Sound Constructs are objects made of solid sound. Ever experience a wall of sound? Like that, but wayyy more intense. Intense enough to essentially be solid. They usually have a specific sound playing around them. This is their signature. They have the appearance of coloured static.
The How: He attempts to zero in on a certain tempo, melody, bassline, etc of the Beat. Different focuses, he calls them signatures, have different effects.
The Limitations: It always must be a solid. No gasses, liquids, or plasmas, (except, of course, BFlat vodka). It cannot be too complicated, or have too many parts. Generally speaking, up to 3 moving parts if he's feeling particularly focused. The constructs cannot currently go further than 6-8 meters away from him, and can have a volume of up to 10-12 liters (at the moment...).
At the moment, he's very limited by his inexperience. He only knows a few signatures, and making up new ones on the fly is very much guesswork.
Orb: Simply that. An orb, nothing more. He can control it.
Razor: A shaving razor. He learned this one to save on buying razors.
Mouldable Shape: A somewhat clay-like signature. He can control the shape of it through direct contact, but it cannot go further away than 1 meter, and it cannot move unless he moves it.
Interests: Creation, Destruction, Punk Music, Chemistry, Wine (although he can't afford it), and The Arts
Outlook/philosophy: A huge cynic. He has very few fucks to give. Especially if someone is overly optimistic or faithful. This doesn't stop him enjoying what he enjoys or hanging around the people he hands around, though. He believes that life is for the living. His pessimistic attitude is a result of many disappointments, and is mainly there so that he's either right or pleasantly surprised.
He's a strong misanthropist, and believes that the solution to all problems is to eradicate humans. His reasoning for this is that humans are the ones that define what a problem is. There are no problems if there is nothing to define what a problem is. He also believes this because he has seen civilisation as a massive failure. There were many chances to rise above, or truly become better, but we fucked it all up. As we get richer we get more stuff, more respect, and more advanced. We also just get more hopeless, more lonely, more hedonistic.
Manny's a 24 year old guy who's just trying to find his way in the big wide world. 6'6, but skinny as a rake and with about as much experience with grass, he's nothing overly remarkable, despite the raggedy braids. He rocks around in a beat up old Chevy pickup, he always has a smile on his face and a beer in the backseat, next to his prized violin. Despite appearances, he's not as broke as he would seem at first. A steady income from busking, working as a sandwich artist and selling just a little weed on the side. He's also a mean card player when it comes to blackjack, although he doesn't play for money very often. Matchsticks is fine for him.
Manny is a downbeater. He hears the beat as an endless country fiddle song, bowing and bowing as the background to his life. His particular powerset is focused around empathetic abilities, as well as aiding others. He can innately sense the mood around him like nobody else can, and more than that, can influence it. Many a fight has been disarmed before it began by a few easy words from Manny, and he's not exaggerating when he shows off the notches on his belt. Perhaps a little unethical, but he doesn't see it that way. His other powers include being able to increase the potency of fellow beathearers's abilities, as well as minor healing- he can't bring someone back from the brink, but setting a bone or mending a slip with the kitchen knife aren't an issue for him.
Shockingly, Manny's parents weren't huge on 'The Man.' In an age of ever increasing connectivity and straight-lacedness, his parents were quite the opposite. His grandparents attended Woodstock, smoked dope and got through life, and his parents were Boomers to the extreme. Only a life of ignoring modern technology and the fact that they're decidedly average have stopped them from being Yuppies, and Manny's friends were all of a similar ilk. His family holidays were to nudist camps, his parents would smoke a six pack a day and tell him not to do the same, and he grew up hearing about the evils of corporations and how Mother Nature isn't always something to be ignored.
Thankfully, however, that wasn't his entire upbringing. Modern school taught him the values of 'Big Pharma,' and he's a relatively well-rounded person. Whilst he considered taking a major in botany, the obscene prices of student loans, coupled with a want to do his own thing in life meant that he took a year backpacking, where he picked up playing violin in order to earn a bit of cash on the road. He's visited every six out of seven continents in the world, but returned to his native US just in time to hear the Beat start to pound through life.
He realised that he was a Beathearer when he was twenty two. Slowly but surely, he worked out his abilities and how they worked. He considers himself fairly lucky that not only did he hear the Beat as a type of music that he could play, but his abilities are easy to conceal, easy to pass off as being absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, and easy to practise. Well, apart from his ability to buff up the powers of others. That's by far his most unrefined skill.
Unfortunately though, not much has changed since he began to hear the beat. He still works as a sandwich artist, still busks on the side, still sells the same stuff he sold a few years ago, and still keeps his Beatsmithing on the down low. Something has to change in his life, but he doesn't know how or when that's going to happen.
Really, just looking at a picture should tell you all you need to know. Laid back, bit of a joker, midnight toker. He likes a decent beer, a decent steak and a decent place to rest his head with some decent friends. Really, there ain't nothing unusual about Manny Redwood.
Beatrunning powers include increased resistance to minor damage (scrapes, scratches, bruises and broken limbs,) wall 'stickiness' making it easy to climb, wallrun, wallhang and the like, and heightened reflexes.
Downbeat powers include acoustic manipulation. Jenny can, by touching an object, cause it to take on many different acoustic properties. These include acoustic absorption, reducing the sound it reflects, acoustic magnification, increasing this, echo magnification, increasing the amount of time an object will echo sound off it, and how loud the echo is, and more.
Name:Alexander Joseph Mitchells Gender:Male Age:Twenty-Seven Appearance: ‘pon his cranium cascades onyx tendrils lightened towards silver edges coming to a rest at the length of his shoulders, often teased into a slightly messy posture to maintain a casual ‘bed head’ look. Taking note of his position and pale complexion Alexander offsets his soft pale Caucasian complexion with black silk button downs with sleeves rolled to three-quarter length, pressed black slacks, black belt with silver buckle and high shine black oxfords. Beat Heard As:LoFi / Trap / Classical Beathearer Type:Beatsmith Possible Electroweaver.
Personality: Alexander is aloof, carefree and gentle mannered to everyone however he carries an air of confidence due to his upbringing and position in life. Honest and hardworking to the point of it being a flaw Alexander didn’t understand the meaning of down-time until the Beat happened. Where he relaxed and understood that he did not always have control of his life. With his business prowess and intellect, he intends on doing the right thing but also allowing his wealth to give him the personal freedom he needs to grow.
History: Born an only child Alexander grew up to the finer grander things in life with a mother who worked as a criminal lawyer turned senator and a father who was a decorated marine. Alexander was taught the value of hard work and perseverance which spread to everything he touched his hands on. He wanted to be the best at anything he set his goals on. From computer science, to engineering and becoming multi-lingual. He would work hard and play very little.
Following this motto, he launched BLACKDOOR Security Technologies in which he spent three years building his own security program languages and finishing contracts from the ground up until he received government and military funding to fully cement himself and his business as something to watch as clients began piling up.
Working hard on a Class S-1 security protocol for the military, he first heard it. The sound of LoFi, a gentle beat that calmed and relaxed him but at that moment – FORGOTTEN – He remembers nothing of that moment, coming too not long after. Employment:CEO of BLACKDOOR Security Technologies Accommodations:Upmarket Penthouse Suit to the north. Transport:Sazuki R1 Supersport The Beat: Alexander’s beat allows him too albeit randomly for the most part cause people to forget exactly what they are doing completely for thirty seconds. With practice he believes he can expand the time in which he can remove memories, maybe even surgically remove specific memories from people’s pasts but for now only random subjects forget things and himself causing him to carry notes with him upon his phone filled with important information.
Born of an Italian-American mother and an Australian father, Miranda combines the best of both with striking natural looks which have only marred slightly in recent years. Her deep brown hair, hazel eyes and olive skin have led her many places in life, but now she prefers to keep herself hidden from the world instead.
Beatsmith, utilising molecular vibrations to manipulate visual spectrum light waves.
With this ability Miranda can absorb and bend light around herself and nearby objects making them functionally invisible. Storing the energy inside her body as molecular vibrations before expelling it as light, usually in the form as blades from her hands, the duration of her invisibility is tied to the energy storage capacity of her body. When hiding larger areas or groups of people, the duration is greatly reduced, in line with the inverse square law based on the surface area of the group being disguised.
Personality:
Once a hard hitting go-getter, driven to succeed no matter what, Miranda found herself living a life which often rubbed against her own morality the wrong way. The decisions she made to cope with that have left her broken and dejected, in desperate need of help and friendship while shunning those who once called her their friend.
History:
Miranda was raised an only child by her single mother, which sounds a lot worse than it actually was. Her mother Carmen Bianchi was a second generation Italian-American immigrant whose parents had made good lives for themselves opening several restaurants across the country. Instead of continuing the family business Carmen sold it off for a very tidy sum, which ensured not only a comfortable lifestyle for herself and her daughter, but also provided the best education money could buy for young Miranda.
Pushed to make the investment her mother had made for her pay off, Miranda was always a diligent, hard-working student, pushing herself to succeed through high school and college until finally finding herself working for ParaCure Pharmaceuticals in their sales department. There her true education really began.
As the frontline of the business, Miranda played her part making deals for substandard products, lobbying senators and congressmen on behalf of her corporation masters to ensure their profit margins remained as high as possible, no matter the cost to others. At first Miranda simply played her part, taking her place the the game of political manoeuvrings which made up corporate life. Over the years though, she found herself drifting more and more from old friends as the burden of lies and secrets her life brought with it weighed more heavily upon her.
And then the music started.
It was quiet at first, a rhythm carried on the air barely noticeable but always just on the edge of hearing. Over time it grew, until every second of Miranda’s life was accompanied by the subtle backdrop of an orchestral score. Her first response was to question her own mind, wondering if this was a symptom of some brain problem which could soon see her dead or disabled, but then she heard whispers from her industry contacts of others around the world experiencing similar symptoms, and more.
Knowing the music was just the first step, Miranda arranged a private getaway for herself somewhere she could experiment with any possible powers she may have safety. During the two week vacation, pushing herself just as hard as she ever had, Miranda’s invisibility manifested for the first time. In the months that followed she honed the skill, practicing whenever she could and testing the limits of her power. When she finally felt ready she decided to finally take action.
In an orchestrated series of thefts, Miranda gathered evidence of the misappropriations, misdeeds and outright crimes committed by her company, and others like them which she had access to. Once collected she delivered the information in all its sordid detail to various news media outlets and support groups and sat back waiting in satisfaction.
Over the next couple of months she waited patiently. And then she waited pensively. Finally she waited angrily, enruriated that after the risks she’d taken nothing had happened. Making a few discrete enquiries she discovered that the owners of the news outlets, many of whom were either shareholders in the companies involved or had business connections to them, had quashed any reports of their illicit activities. At the same time pressure was made on the support groups, either threatening them with legal action or paying them off for their silence to keep the reports out of the public eye.
Disbelieving of the callousness of those in charge, Miranda took a desperate gamble and reached out to groups more actively opposed to the industrial super complex, offering them her aid in exchange for publicity in the companies’ duplicity. One group responded, asking Miranda to arrange access for them to her company’s offices and research departments, telling her they intended to collect irrefutable photographic and video evidence of the misdeeds perpetrated by the organisation and promising no-one would be hurt.
On the fateful day Miranda arranged to be offsite, so as to lessen any link to the events and protect her anonymity with the extremists. It wasn’t until afterwards that she learned that the infiltration had been anything but peaceful. Several gunmen had stormed the building, moving from office to office gunning down anyone they found. Casualties ranged from high level executives to low level clerks to mailroom workers and cleaners.
Horrified by what her actions had led to Miranda shutdown. The emotional shock at the events she’d caused leaving her fragile and broken. When ParaCure offered her early retirement on the grounds of emotional stress she took it gladly, the generous package tied up with nondisclosure agreements and legal notifications designed to protect her from any backlash from the incident, but far more to protect the corporation from her telling anyone else what she knew.
Moving out of state, Miranda bought a small, affordable apartment outright and set herself up in a new life. The comfortable little apartment felt good for her, letting her keep everyone she might hurt at a distance and far enough away so she never made another mistake like the one she had before.
Employment:
Currently unemployed, living off a generous severance package from her former corporate position.
Accommodations:
Small multi-room apartment with a balcony overlooking the gardens to the rear.
Transport:
Although Miranda owns a Harley-Davidson VRSCA it rarely leaves the garage. She still takes care to maintain the cycle however, keeping it ready to be used ‘tomorrow’.
Anything Else:
Miranda has two cats, Jasper and Calypso, who were a gift from a former lover. She cares for them deeply, even though the person she received them from is no longer in her life.
Beathearer Type: Beatrunner- Mahlik can use a form of self gravity which allows him weight manipulation. This allows him light mobility (near super leap, running across water, climbing, airtime, and some speed) Along with heavy attacks/body (near form density increase to bit harder, make himself nearly immobile or immovable, And possibly incapacitate an individual. Even use a combination in shifting weight for various circumstances. There's one skill that mahlik is still learning to use properly and that's creating a gravity armor/field to cover parts of his body. (More of repulsive gravitational armor to deflect attacks, mostly attacks of solid/liquid matter that tries to hit him. It takes concentration to keep it up and it depends on the intensity and force of what's hitting him. If utilized in offense, it could add a little more push back force upon impact.)
Personality: A little rough around the edges but has a heart of gold. He tends to get himself into trouble and has a potty mouth. He's usually speaks his mind without thinking the consequences but his intentions and goals in life are actually noble. The trouble he gets into are caused from his bravery or ignorance towards the dangers and circumstances that he's faced against. He does have care for people in general but if you're a close acquaintance that Mahlik could call a friend, he's loyal to the end. And he has love for the bitches (Only calls ladies that because he don't know their names individually. No sensitivity needed)
History: Out of the mouth of Mahlik: "There really ain't too much shit to talk about. I'm a army brat. Constantly changing schools, never had time to make friends, always had to prove myself to muh-fukkaz. Always fightin', dealin with my 2 older brothaz who thought it was funny to treat me like shit. I always had hand-me-downs and because of that, I started speaking out about how messed up it is that I'm always getting the short end of the stick."
"I was always active. Taking up mixed martial arts, played football, took gymnastics and parkour. I was always smaller than most so I had to always run to get away from trouble. My life changed when my Pops left my Ma and my Ma turned abusive and a drunk. had to get the hell out of this because I had no one to turn to."
"I got on my own when I was 17, hustlin'...doin what I can to survive until one day...this beat man...this beat came out of no where and just played in my head over and over. Now...this may sound funny and may sound like I'm on some shit but...I gained powers...it was crazy though because I was feeling as light as a feather and then as heavy as a car. But that beat though...it never left me. And since then, just kept grindin' and started doin' somethin' I always wanted to do....help people...help the kids. And that's what I'm doing to this day while I handle business like how my Pops taught me...learn several different trades so you'd be able to do damn near anything and that's what I do with my business."
"I get hit on sometimes by both men and women. My Ma told me to make sure I have good friends in my life that will always have my back. If i find someone I click with cool...if not...fuck it..still grindin' baby..."
His Habitat:
-He has his own oddjobs business. It stretches from Cleaning to Deliveries, catering, being a cameraman for amateur porn, photography, dog walking, security, and anything that Mahlik can think of that he could possibly do. If he's in a hustle, he'll fight for money or race. Local vigilante
-Rents an apartment but is usually spends time in other's homes. -Drives a yellow and black Suzuki GSX-R750 -Has a love for eating. Majority of the time, he's seen eating a something. -Owns an English Bulldog named Juggernaut
Dropped out of Highschool. Took a job as a janitor, and studied music on the side.
Former Double Bassist for a Hardbop band by the name of Birdcalls. They celebrated his retirement by dedicating an album to him, letting him compose the whole thing. It's only popular among Jazz fanatics, but it's held with some acclaim.
Can no longer play Double Bass due to a combination of the Beat, and shaky fingers.
Pals started calling him Grits when he threw a bowl of Grits at someone who pissed him off. The name's stuck since then.
Taking Anger Management classes that aren't working too swell. Instead of physical outbursts, he gives verbal outbursts. Also has taken to late-night smackdowns as a means to relieve stress.
Frequently shifts the blame to forces other than himself.
Stubborn.
Prone to exaggeration.
Former alcoholic. Avoids drinking, but has trouble staying away from his old haunts. Orders water, instead.
Widower.
Soft spot for Mexican food. Especially fond of anything with guacamole.
Retired. Doesn't have a lot of money, but is able to make ends meet.
Has lunch at Al's Place every Thursday. It is a hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant which takes him an hour to walk to. Has an unspoken kinship with Al. They both know that words would only ruin their relationship.
5'11". 211 lbs.
Male.
Scar on the back of his hand. Has a scar on the right side of his neck.
Received a Liver transplant.
Type O+ Blood.
Shaky fingers.
Much healthier than the above information would suggest.
Brown eyes.
Lives in a cheap studio apartment. Very cluttered. Has made a fort out of boxes which he refuses to take down. There is no bed, so he sleeps on the recliner. Despite all of this, it is very homey.
Prized possession is a Kay Upright Double Bass 1941 M-1W Model. It is slightly out of tune by choice, but has not been played properly in a few months.
Keeps a Colt Detective Special tucked away in the back of his pants. The gun was obtained through shady means which Grits keeps to himself.
Old, faded olive green coat which has seen a ton of wear-and-tear. Clearly dear to him. In addition to this, he has a pair of white sunglasses which he politely takes off indoors.
Keeps all of his music-listening equipment in a box labeled "MUSIC LISTENIN'".
Hears the Beat as something close to what Ornstein may have composed. Underlying his particular interpretation of the Beat is a thread of violet-hued, confused anger.
Renders him unable to keep a beat that's anything other than the Beat. This irritates him to no end, as he wants to play something true to himself, but does not identify the Beat as something native to himself. His outlook on the Beat is akin to that of a parasite.
Blames all of his problems on the day he started to hear the Beat, regardless of how true it might be.
Beatrunner powers include a significantly reduced need for sleep, an extended lifespan, the ability to heal off all but the most serious of wounds in the matter of a couple of weeks, and increased sprinting speed which he claims allows him to charge someone with the force of a train (but he doesn't do it because it hurts the hell out of him).
Name: Brandon Whittaker; in vigilante persona, goes by "Queen of Swords"
Gender: Male
Age: 20
Appearance: For a guy, Brandon is oddly feminine. Dark-haired, light-skinned, and pale-eyed, "twink" would be the term to describe him based on his 170cm height - often dressing in dark, loose clothing in casual settings, he has a fondness for hair gel and makeup that borders on camp, not to mention a few bits of jewellery that often stand out compared to his outfit. Many people question his sexuality as a result. He also shaves his entire body very regularly, and has a lot of dark-coloured tights and gym shirts, though these are for legitimate gymnastics reasons rather than being mere fashion choices.
As the Queen of Swords, his clothing is far more distinctive, and far more girlish, showing off a black-and-red cybergoth design that combines leather, cloth, and metal in a distractingly unforgettable fashion, and very subtly adds and subtracts curves in a way that makes his figure seem legitimately female. Combined with a red and black wig, held on by the straps of a pseudo-plague doctor mask glowing with red LEDs and bearing a voice shifter to make himself sound more feminine, it is extremely difficult to distinguish who is under all the clothing and gear. All that, of course, is to hide his true identity whilst he takes on the streets - or so it would seem, as he never crossdresses outside of acting as the Queen of Swords.
Personality: Normally, Brandon comes across as quite an amicable guy. He dedicates himself suitably to whatever work he is tasked with, usually some form of gymnastics practice, but also understands the need to give himself some downtime too, and isn't so fond of those who don't see the need to calm down at any point (though not to the point of hating them if not given a reason to). That said, he's very anti-drug use, and laments how many of his neighbours indulge themselves in such vices, often encouraging them to drop the drugs in order to improve their fitness. He's also the sort of person who truly believes that the bad side of human nature is something that will eventually be excised from the species, and he nominally espouses that this will be through humanity evolving itself beyond a need for such ill traits.
As the Queen of Swords, the full depths of his delusions of grandeur come to the fore - in truth, he sees evil as something that must be dealt justice, and as evolution is very well known for being utterly random beyond whatever survives the breeding cycle, it is therefore true that evil humans must be taken out of the genepool by force rather than guile. He is fully willing to perform this work himself, considering the fact that he hears the Beat proof that he is worthy of this difficult task, and if other Beathearers oppose him, then evidently they have misjudged what they must do, or else fail to recognise what Brandon considers obvious.
History: Brandon was born into a decent enough family, but very frequently showed off tendencies toward more feminine pursuits; he never bore an aptitude for soccer or football, but loved to read and dance, was an avid theatre fan, and was very keen on gymnastics by the time he reached high school. Thus, he wound up being bullied very frequently throughout his years of education; in particular, one boy in high school found a target in Brandon, a boy who at some point developed the power to produce rocky spires to trip or hit people with. Whilst this was no fun for anyone else either, Brandon in particular often wished that boy would suffer some horrible accident, or that he'd suffer in such a way that he'd never bully anybody again.
Brandon's wish would be answered one fateful day, when in the middle of a class he started hearing some sort of music in his head. It was dramatic and fast-paced, reminiscent of a lot of the shows he watched on television as a child, shows featuring heroes beating up the bad guys, shows where the heroes were always in the right. That music inspired Brandon, when he was confronted by that boy again during his lunch break, to kick the boy in the stomach, for which he got beaten up a bunch, though with surprisingly little injury after a quick check-up by the nurse.
By the time he'd gotten out of the nurse's room, that boy's belly had split open in the middle of the schoolgrounds, spilling his organs in front of hundreds of screaming teenagers. The boy received prompt medical treatment and barely survived, but from then on was forced to use a colostomy bag, and- much as Brandon had wanted- never bullied anybody again. It took a few days for the gears to fit together, but Brandon eventually realised the truth: he'd done that. He'd manifested the Beat, and defeated somebody he considered evil.
From then on, his self-image developed in a somewhat twisted fashion, boosting his confidence greatly, but leading to some vile conclusions. He'd gained the power to fight against evil and injustice; that evil hadn't been taken down by any legitimate systems to date; the fact he existed and could do it therefore meant he must in lieu of anything else; since the tools given to him obviously encouraged doing so in a violent fashion, he'd have to use violent means; and that was fine, as those with power regularly committed far worse acts on a regular basis. At some point, something in his brain stopped functioning properly, and by the time he graduated from high school, he'd managed to convince himself that people who performed evil acts weren't human enough to justify letting them live, meaning it was fine if he mutilated them, or even killed them.
What wouldn't be fine would be what happened if he was discovered cutting people up willy-nilly. He had to do it, but he also had to avoid being seen doing it, at least as himself. He had to dissociate himself from such killings as much as possible... and how better to do so, he decided, than to pretend to be female when performing his deeds? Thus, as soon as he moved to a new town to be closer to his college of choice, he ordered a cybergoth outfit designed to make his frame seem feminine, complete with fake plague doctor mask to hide his features.
Since then, every so often, reports have shown up in town about people being discovered missing limbs, disembowelled, and decapitated, not to mention far worse injuries; yet, all victims are visibly seen to have been in the act of committing a crime in the process, and so it happens that too many of those reports simply go unheeded, whether or not they could be followed up on to begin with...
Beat Heard As: Actionorchestral. Beathearer Type: Beatrunner Beat Abilities: Generation of ultrasonic vibrations that, when suitably focused, allow him to disrupt molecular bonds on contact and consequently cut through nearly anything with his hands, feet, arms, and legs, even allowing up to a few minutes of delay before an actual cut is made if focused correctly. Substantially enhanced speed, durability, and awareness of his own body, possibly a side effect of his vibrations. Reduced need for sleep - about four hours a night is sufficient for him to remain fully alert. Modified response to potentially traumatic events, leaving him unaffected by the sight of extreme blood and gore.
Employment: College student and aspiring professional gymnast - he hasn't decided upon Olympic or stage yet. Accommodations: Three-room, relatively cheap apartment, about an hour's walk from college. Paid for by his parents on the understanding that he doesn't drop out. Transport: Public or foot. Cars are expensive. Skillset: Reasonably intelligent, with a particular bent toward kinaesthetic intelligence, providing a keen sense of balance regardless of the surface or his footwear. Extremely flexible, able to bend his body in graceful yet athletic postures. Able to leap quite a substantial distance into the air and land unharmed through a combination of his Beat-borne speed and gymnastic skill. Anything Else: N/A
