The name your character was given at birth.

Is there anything else your character goes by? Nicknames/Aliases/Callsigns/etc? Make a list! Or just put an N/A here.

Basically, what your character identifies as.

10-19, so nothing beyond highschool age.

Essentially how your character looks. Be detailed here. Go over skin color, build, height, hair (including color, style, etc), scars, and other body alterations (Piercings, tattoos, etc).

Optional. What is your character's clothing style?

Give a brief list on your characters personality traits, you don't have to go particularly in depth here but try to give everyone an idea of how your character is.

Be realistic. I won't accept a genius hacker that's a Judo master, parkour prodigy, and is smooth as ice.

What happened in your character's past that shaped them into the person they are today? Why they are here? You can gloss over events you'd rather reveal in-character.

Type-Yellow, Type-Red, Type-Blue, Type-Green, Type-White, or Type Chromatic.

Thoroughly describe your character's power, and all strengths (Don't link or copy/paste from powerlistings, tho).

The difference between limits and weaknesses is that limits is a restriction. Something like range that your character can overcome. Might not be necessary depending on the power, but for stronger powers, I'd like to see some strong and clearly defined limits.

List anything an opponent can take advantage of, or any negative side effects. Stronger the ability, the more I want to see here.

Jasmine Tsega. (Nyala uses a more American name because it allows her to blend in, and she likes it)

Female

18

Jasmine is a very pronounced teenager in terms of appearance. It's because of her pronounced looks because of her Ethiopian heritage. She just has that distinct Ethiopian facial shape. That means that Jasmine here is African-American to her very bone. Afro-textured hair, brown skin, thick lips, and of course the African facial-shape. She has a slightly nerdy vibe about her because she is utterly blind without her glasses, and hates the fact that she has to wear them. However, the girl is much more in line with urban girls. It's the way she dresses and acts, after all. Jasmine has the aura of a model, mostly because she loves to pose, and take pictures of herself. She's a girl that loves to be in tip-top shape, instead of being a slob. Because of this, the girl's body is pretty well-toned from exercise and the biz. She has the build of a runner because she's a track runner in school. The rest of her body is well-toned because of yoga-stretches, and bodybuilding.

All of this means that Jasmine is a tad muscular. Almost like she is aiming to become a model. She does have a bit of body-fat, and all it does is make the girl curvier. I'll go into that later. The girl isn't painfully tall at five-three, but her build more than makes up for it. She has a pear body-shape, instead of the famed hour-glass - but she makes it work. With her lower body being the wider part of Jasmine, her breasts aren't anything to write home about at 34B, but her hips and behind are wide. Her perfectly round behind is the butt of many jokes. Jasmine walks with a swagger in her step and sways her hips left and right. She definitely gives off the aura of a vain female with all the looks she gives people that tells them she's the queen bee. Though, she certainly has a playful side. It shows when she smiles - and that's only when she's around the people she trusts very much.

♦ Competitive ♦ Aggressive ♦ Maternal ♦ Haughty/Arrogant as fuck ♦ Tempermental ♦ Playful ♦ Respects Authority

Jasmine Nnamani was born in Germany to parents that were very important architects that made plenty of trips around the world. That made the money flow in for the young Jasmine, and gave her everything she ever wanted. She was always a ball of energy... like, she was a limitless supply of it. Which caused her to act out without any real outlet. It would be years before anyone would even think of putting Jasmine in a sport. She started by first joining the local soccer (or Football) team, which served her well, until she got into basketball where she did much better. Putting that energy towards winning above all else. Sure, she had the energy to do it, but Jasmine talented at sports that she was showered with praise at a young age... and that really filled her head with the idea that she needed victory above all else, and made her incredibly arrogant. It wasn't long until the girl had become obsessed with the idea of being the very best.

With the world showering her with praise, Jasmine felt unstoppable... that is, until her parents got a divorce after her mother found out that her father had an affair with an American woman a few years ago, and fathered a child with her. She didn't even want anything to do with Jasmine, so she was left in the care of her father as the two came to America to find new business. Moving to another country was hard, since she was leaving behind her life of fame... and then quickly found out that America had a big love of sports (even some large leagues just for women). The moment Jasmine touched down in Seattle, Washington, she spent her time practicing and training for the WNBA.

It wasn't long until Jasmine encountered her half-sister Phoebe Nnamani. The two didn't get along that well... at all. Given that Jasmine thought that Phoebe was a loser, and not even worth her time. Which caused a noticeable schism between the two, but Jasmine didn't even waste time on Phoebe, and instead single-mindedly focused on becoming the best. It wasn't long until Jasmine became queen bee of her highschool merely by sports talent alone. Her name became known all over school... but, not all over Seattle! She tried her best to get noticed by sports agencies, but, just couldn't. That was such a blow to her pride that she went to some rather... seedy lengths to get to that level, she met with a few people that her father knows and they arranged a little deal.

Soon Jasmine graduated from highschool with rather average grades, school was for nerds anyway. Jasmine was just going to try a little harder. That's when she noticed a change in her biology. She felt much stronger and faster than ever before. Her wounds healed at an accelerated rate, and she didn't feel the need to eat anymore. When in sunlight, she felt so much stronger. It didn't take long for Jasmine to realize that she was a Metahuman, and the first thing she did was decide to keep it a secret. She used her secret power to cheat at Basketball and suddenly it appeared that Jasmine had gotten good at the sport. Trophy after trophy, she felt amazing like she finally got the recognition she deserved, however it wasn't before someone got suspicious and ratted her out to FAMA. They determined that she was a Metahuman and all of her awards and trophies were taken away from her - not just that, she was effectively blacklisted from any major team and they would never let her in.

The girl told FAMA was she just suddenly and randomly developed powers, and they believed it. However, the people that she arranged said deal with came so she could fulfil her end of the bargain, and that involved going to Academy 003. She didn't want to go to superhuman school, but they managed to get her an invitation and soon enough she was going there...

... With her annoying little sister in tow.

Type-Yellow.

Jasmine has the ability to absorb solar energy through her skin to gain strength. Whenever she absorbs this sunlight, it is stored in her skin until it is needed later. What does she use solar radiation for? Well, I'll tell you. She can use this in two different ways. First, passively, Jasmine can substitute solar energy for sustenance. She won't need to eat as solar energy empowers her, and instead provides her with all the energy she needs without ever having to take a single bite (She only eats because she wants to). She'll need to drink water, though. Thus, it gives her to have much more energy during her activities, and holds off fatigue until lactic acids kick in like a bitch. Jasmine's body-heat is also a bit higher due to containing so much energy, but it varies depending on how much energy she has absorbed. The average human is around 98F. Jasmine on the other hand is a good 150F at her very max. Which is hot as a mug on touch. Naturally, she has a higher resistance to heat... not enough so that she's immune to fire, but enough so that she doesn't cook herself alive. Along with being fairly immune to the adverse effects of absorbing so much solar radiation. As for the other half of Jasmine's ability, well....

Of course, you probably realized this by now, but sunlight is a fuel for her abilities. While she stores an abnormal amount of energy within her cells, she also uses it up fairly quickly when she regenerates, or accesses her super strength. Which means she, essentially, cannot keep using her powers long-term, or she'll run out of energy. Jasmine will have to be constantly absorbing solar radiation... and the only way to do that efficiently is less than ideal to say the least. Speaking of which, to access the upper limits of her powers, she's going to be needing a load of preparation. Meaning, hours of sunbathing in skimpy bikinis. Which means it is possible for her to be cut off from the strength she needs if necessary. Thus, Jasmine is much weaker indoors/at night.

Unless she throws something, Jasmine will be restricted to close ranged combat. While she's strong, she's still limited by her stamina. Excessively lifting objects places a strain onto Jasmine. Like average humans, her muscles will tire out after doing it a lot. It's rather for her to overexert herself, and feel burnt out. Fighting at full strength isn't exactly ideal. While Jasmine is tough as nails, she still feels pain. A punch can't hurt her normally. Her durability mostly prevents physical attacks from hurting her, elemental (Specifically Energy) attacks are effective against her. Getting set on fire isn't pleasant (Her blood might boil!), electricity would knock her out, and etc. And, you know, she still needs air. Jasmine's regeneration, while increasing her resilience by a large margin, is not completely infallible. Shooting her in the head/heart will kill her like any other person.

Now, Jasmine is much stronger than she is tough. Even at her very best, her strength still outpaces her durability. Throwing full-strength punches like wild would tear up her hand, and while she can regenerate, that's still not something she likes doing. In fact, by going all-out, she impairs her own healing ability. By activating her power, Jasmine immediately packs on a lot more weight because muscle (especially superpowered muscle) is very heavy. Which, in turn, fucks with her balance by a great deal. Now, in order to accomplish her regeneration, Jasmine needs to get the biological materials from somewhere. Either from the food she eats, sunlight, or... her body can start cannibalizing biological materials. Such as, her muscles, or her organs. Which she won't be able to get back until she gets other materials to replace them.

Male

17

Jack thinks of himself as a smooth pretty boy, and he acts like it, too. Usually, he has a coy smile on his face as he projects confidence with every step. Though, he usually keeps a cool and casual demeanor around himself that he always constantly contradicts by acting loud, excitable, and flippant. Jack is concerned with keeping up appearances and the one image that he wants to project is the "edgy guy" aura. Jack Stauber takes a lot of pride in his appearance and would have a fit if there was one scuff-mark on his outfit. Which is why you'd probably see him brushing off his outfit (or carrying alcohol wipes to clean off stains on his outfit). So, Jack build wise is a pretty skinny kid, mildly athletic and has somewhat toned legs and arms from all the exercise he inadvertently ends up getting from his "extra curricular activities". Jack isn't exactly super tall, in fact he's under the male average by about two inches, not that most people would notice it unless they compared him to somebody taller.

Jack's a mess of different kinds of European countries, his father said that he came from a line of Irish immigrants and mixed from there, and his mother came from Ukraine. Jack doesn't think too hard about it and just says that he's white. He's got relatively healthy skin, just that it's covered in a variety of scars from his old criminal days. From scars he got from his gadgets literally exploding in his hands, to scars from misjudging a jump and falling. He has green eyes and not so striking brown hair he keeps combed upwards but wild looking.

♦ Hardly takes things seriously ♦ Tries to act cool ♦ Impulsive ♦ Tries to do the right thing ♦ Self-Proclaimed Lady's Man ♦ Acts casual but fails ♦ A bit of a neat freak ♦ Show-Off ♦ Easily excited/impressed ♦ Slow to answer ♦

Jack was born in Verthaven and would have lived a relatively normal life in one of the poorer areas of the city if it wasn't for the Verthaven Disaster going on. He was way too young to comprehend the horrors of the city as his parents fought for the safety of Jack and his siblings. For what felt like years he lived in an evacuee camp that was protected by RAVEN, unaware of all the violence and carnage that was going on in other parts of the city. By the time the worst had started - it was all over and Jack and his family were finally able to leave. They, like a majority of the survivors of that mess, ended up in Baybridge, and it wasn't easy. They ended up in the poorer neighborhoods and since their father's job was annihilated the best he could end up with was a warehouse somewhere. They lived in a trailer park and that wasn't the least comfortable place to live in, and a lot of the time was spent with his parents arguing. To pass the time, Jack found his grandfather's old guitar, which had been saved during the disaster and began to learn it. It was crucial in drowning out the infuriating sounds of his parents constantly fighting. However, things took a turn that Jack wasn't expecting when his father was killed in a robbery gone wrong.

The family were shocked and did everything they could to cope with the situation. His mother fell into a pit of depression and became a heavy drinker, while the rest of the siblings fell to their vices. Jack, on the other hand, was exposed to the Delta-Point energy (Specifically Blue and Green energies) when he was in the Verthaven disaster and the sheer grief of his father's death forced his power to develop and spontaneously manifest. He didn't notice that he had a power at first, but he started getting these "ideas" in his head about stuff he can build. He ignored it, but then he experimented, he didn't know how he got this knowledge but he built the simplest invention that came to mind: a lamp. It didn't work at first before he had to charge it with his Metahuman energy and then it functioned. Jack realized the possibilities were endless. However, with the death of his father, that meant the breadwinner was gone, and since mommy was an alcoholic she was spending what little money they had. So that meant it came down to the rest of the Stauber siblings to keep a roof over their head... while also trying to stay in school and commit to other endeavors.

Jack himself contributed, but the best he could accomplish was getting a part-time job at a local fast food restaurant. He did a bit of everything; cooking, cashiering, cleaning, and felt like he could become a manager. However, it just wasn't enough money, from a mixture of very shitty pay and a lack of hours he could only kind of contribute. The rest of his siblings weren't doing any better (some were doing worse) and they were only able to keep their house because Jack took drastic measures. He started creating trinkets and tools and began to sell them to gangs, the highest bidder, and managed to get a bit of money. However due to how they were inherently designed they were worthless to the average person. All it ended up doing was putting a target on his back as many gangs wanted their money back.

... So Jack went to even more drastic measures. After months of planning and creating tools out of whatever he could, he made a disguise for himself and robbed his own job. After all, he knows a lot about the place and it'd be the easiest to rob. He came out of the ordeal with a few hundred dollars which were a boon that the Stauber household desperately needed - and best of all, he could pay back some of the gangs. However, they needed more money and the gangs wanted their money, so Jack kind of made a habit out of the endeavor. At night, he put on the costume and would go around robbing businesses from convenience stores to restaurants, he even engaged in a little bit of house invasion. As he stopped going to school, he put hundreds, if not thousands of dollars towards the family's bills - they stopped wondering where he was getting all this money from after a while. The money started piling up and Jack managed to pay off the gangs, so that kept them off his back. He, however, realized that he would have to go even bigger if he was going to keep the money flowing for his family. There was only so many times he could rob the same two places before they caught on, and they would have even less to steal the second time. He had more money to buy gadgets, so he could afford it.

He started stealing from bigger businesses, and he wasn't going for money anymore. Oh no, Jack was going for whatever he could sell on the streets because in his eyes it was still money. The many police organizations in the city were starting to catch on, and eventually, they laid out a trap for Jack that he walked right into. He was surrounded by police officers, caught and went peacefully. He was shoved into the back of a police cruiser and it drove off, and he realized that it was the end for him... before the "police officer" that was driving transformed into a woman that smiled at him, telling him words that stuck with him to this very day:

"You're a smart cookie, kid, but you should have stayed in the kiddie pool."

The woman introduced herself as Megan Jervious, and said that she was following Jack, hoping that she would get to him before the police would. They beat her to the punch but she pulled the rug from under them. They abandoned the police cruiser and then she introduced them to a group of Metahuman thieves that she was assembling, and wanted Jack in their ranks. He didn't know what to think, but she promised him money, gear, and more if she joined him... and just to sweeten the deal she gave him a huge sum of money right up front. That was all Jack needed to join them. They didn't even have a name, as Megan wasn't fond of such names so they simply referred to themselves as "The Group". However what she was fond of was covering her tracks, and thus she advised that they keep their distance from each other and strictly know each other by codenames. Off the top of Jack's head there was Gear (the head tech and brains of the operation), Mr. X (the telekinetic heavy hitter and second in command), Missy (a self-biokinetic that was the eyes), Nemesis (Someone capable of creating a fog that heavily interfered with not just vision, but technology and even superpower), Flashbang (A girl that could shoot lasers and create shields), and Megan herself. Jack himself settled on Neutron after Megan telling him that Jimmy Neutron wasn't a cool enough codename. They had no headquarters, and where ever there was a mission they would just meet up somewhere - organized by Megan via text message.

At first, he thought that it'd be difficult being on a team with technopaths, but their powers worked well together, Jack and Gear made many amazing tools. The Group was responsible for a lot of different heists from robbing gangs, stealing from shipping boats to even robbing banks. Long as Jack got a cut, he was down for it. He helped whenever necessary, but they largely kept him out of the way reasoning that he was too young and impulsive to play with the big boys. His devices were instrumental to half of these heists going well, but he also played a part when they didn't. Over time, Jack noticed that they were going after specific groups - mainly businesses and groups under the ISD. It wasn't something he thought too hard about, he just wanted the money as he was finally able to leave his shitty day job behind and kept a roof over his family's head. Over time he was able to accumulate a huge selection of gadgets as he built them with what little free time and money that he had available and it shows.

The Group was known for their speed; they went in from places nobody expects, his them hard and vanishes without a trace while everyone figured out just what in the hell happened. However, after one mission he was approached by Flashbang whom formally introduced herself to him by finally taking off her mask; a teenaged girl around Jack's age. She told him her name was Emily Paige, a girl that had a bone to pick with a lot of people. Jack feeling confident, revealed himself as well, and the two started talking about a lot of different things. About their past, their goals, and most importantly of all; who's going to come out on top and who's going to be the sore one. Emily told Jack that Megan was hiding something and there was something bigger going on here than just stealing stuff, Jack agreed. After all, she was having the group steal confidential research and evidence of under the table dealing - he felt like she knew something that she wasn't sharing with the group.

Because of this mutual suspicion, they both chose to do some "side-jobs" independent of the group. She heard of a deal between some gang and somebody else that was selling one of the last few Delta-Crystals out there. They both, naturally, crashed it, and managed to cause a huge ruckus and snatch the crystals from underneath everyone's noses. Emily and Jack were torn on what to actually do with them - as the crystal painted such a target on their back than trying to sell it would have been completely suicidal. Jack wanted to split the crystals against Emily's wishes, eventually, they conceded and then Jack left with half the crystal. Now, this crystal was the thing that Jack really needed to make his inventions great. He broke the crystal into pieces and then used those shards to fuel his inventions before he came up with his magnum opus; TBFLG (The Big Fucking Laser Gun).

This was something that he showed off during an overnight bank heist - powered by the crystal the beam completely annihilated the vault door... and everything inside of it. Megan was furious at Jack but the spectacle of the vault being destroyed more than made up for all the money they lost. She was also curious as to how the kid got his hands on a Delta-Crystal, and was even angrier for them getting one and not telling her. It was no skin off his back, he went home that night and took a rest; he figured that he would take the day off and save up his energy for the next mission. FAMA raided the house in the middle of the night and then they attacked him with such speed and precision that by the time he awoke he was cuffed, collared, and thrown into a van. He was taken to FAMA headquarters where they explained that they had received an "anonymous tip" and followed through on it (which Jack thought was total bullshit). They confiscated his gadgets, his phone, his gear... but they didn't find a Delta Crystal, which he thought was impossible because if they got his gear, then they got at the crystal. Above all else the feds wanted to know who was organizing The Group, so he told them what they wanted to hear; it was Megan Jervious organizing them and he had no idea who the others were - they thought that was total bullshit because Megan Jervious doesn't exist.

So the charges were piling up as it looked like Jack was going to be thrown in jail for a very long time - however, he received a ray of hope: Academy 003. It seems the vice-headmaster heard of Jack and wanted a chance at "rehabilitating" him so she pulled a few strings and arranged that Jack comes to Academy 003 instead of jail. Jack was happy that he was at less of a risk of becoming somebody's bitch, but it wasn't an ideal solution to Jack either. His family needed him and the money he provided and The Group was where he really belonged - even if he was damming himself to a life of crime, so be it.

Everyone's good at something in this world.

Type Green.

Upon manifesting Jack gained the ability to create incredible technology that uses the Delta-Pont energy (and crystals) as a fuel. This is difficult to explain as he just has the ability to create pieces of technology well beyond his educational or knowledge would allow. He's honestly confused as to how to make this crap, he just knows! These devices are limited to energy based constructions along the lines of said laser guns, force-fields, jet-packs, etc - however, his specialty dictates that it has to be powered by the Delta-Point energy. He usually uses his own Delta-Point energy as he specifically designs his gadgets to absorb the Delta-Energy of whoever is holding it. However, if he gets his hand on a Delta-Crystal the device would functionally be overclocked with so much power that it may explode. He'd have to specially design a device to use the Delta-Crystals. He can repurpose seemingly any other piece of technology and repurpose it in this manner and create tools to protect himself and allies. He usually sticks with the good old laser gun, because you can't go wrong with lasers! He's not sure what's the limit on stuff he can create - though he seemingly gets ideas from observing other Metahumans, and he can't explain it but calls this effect "inspiration". As a majority of his laser weaponry was gotten from observing a friend of his in The Group. Other Metahumans can donate a bit of their energy to fuel his devices if they choose to.

Jack is limited to technology powered by the Delta-Point energy, and if a design isn't powered by it then it simply will not work. Which may not seem like a huge limit but it largely limits him to electronics or energy-based devices. Now, Jack's ability could be amazingly versatile and probably could be the strongest among all the Metahumans. However, it's limited hard by a variety of different factors. For starters, he needs time and resources to build his devices and that makes it impossible for him to even create things on the fly. Thus, he needs to prepare... which could go wrong as he has a habit of horribly misinterpreting situations. In order to make the really advanced gadgets he's going to need high-end stuff, and while there's high end at the Academy it's not beneficial for him to be stealing. Jack's power needs fuel of course, and that comes from himself a majority of the time since he doesn't have anymore Delta Crystals. His body only has a limited amount of Metahuman energy that he can use up before it's empty and he has to wait to replenish it. It should be fine if his power usage is kept limited, but if he goes further beyond that he's going to be in trouble. The mere act of draining his Metahuman energy drains his stamina so he'll eventually be wearing down.

Using his gadgets offensive is a double-edged sword. On one hand, he'll cause damage but on the other hand the Delta-Point energy will (if they're a Metahuman) boost the power of the opponent. So the longer the fight goes on, the most powerful his foe will get, and they'll have a lower chance of ashing. Jack's technological feats aren't exactly expertly put together - they're put together on the fly with what he has on hand. Which means they aren't exactly the most durable in the world, in fact even regular people could probably easily break them. Or if they don't break by themselves - his gadgets are very prone to overheating and then they'll probably end up inoperable over time. Or they'll explode in his hands, which sometimes happens. In addition, he's extra-prone to ashing if he draws on Delta-Energy faster than it can be replenished.

None.

Female

17

Ashley is a girl that carries herself in a withdrawn manner, it's almost as if the girl is constantly trying not to draw attention to herself. She takes small calculated steps and usually keeps her head down. The teen's most striking feature is probably her hair, which is platinum (dyed), straight from all the ironing she does, and goes all the way down to her stomach. It nearly contradicts her demeanor; as a girl who tries not to stick out has a feature that sticks out so much - it moves and flows with her body's movements and at the end of the night she makes sure to tend to it. Other than that, Ashley speaks with a Californian accent, but her voice is somewhat deep and husky - nothing that makes her sound anything other than a female, but it catches some people off guard. Though, it's definitely not a voice that she'll make a singing career out of.

In terms of her build; the girl is skinny. All that yoga and early morning jog that she hears about works for keeping her thin - though it's more of the fact that she has good genetics than anything else. Ashley has a flat stomach with thin limbs, and it's hard to call Ashley anything but a toothpick. She doesn't have a whole lot of curves with 30A's and hips that get hidden under anything that isn't skin tight - and her body shape is relatively square. Because of the same jogging, she got exposed to a healthy amount of sun and her skin is far from pale. The girl is merely an inch over the female average, nothing that anyone would really notice or pay any attention to. The girl is a mishmash of different European countries - primarily she's French with a bit of English in her blood, after a surprising ancestry test she found out that she was distantly African.

♦ Level-Headed ♦ Cool and Casual ♦ Kind of paranoid ♦ Calls herself "realistic" ♦ Cynical ♦ Compassionate ♦ Tends to be Blunt and Rude unintentionally ♦ Does not like to be touched ♦ Guilty ♦ Distrusting of FAMA ♦

So Ashley was born as a trio of triplets, with her siblings being Olivia (The oldest out of the three), and Krystal (A name that her father picked out because he thought it was funny). You see, her father, Vincent Stone was a master at Yale and got a job in Silicon Valley, so the Stone family lived pretty comfortably in the city of San Francisco. Ashley wasn't exactly an overly social person, she primarily kept to herself but held a conversation if necessary. Which was a contrast to her more social and outgoing sisters who had become fairly popular in school. She was very close to her mother, who she imparted much of her knowledge and morals on Ashley. She told her that the world was a very cold and unforgiving place and that she had to stay on her toes at all times if she was going to survive. It wasn't something that her siblings had agreed with but it was something that Ashley held onto.

Her sisters were more outgoing and were able to convince Ashley to get out more by getting her to go to a concert by a local band. Ashley really enjoyed herself and was quickly initiated into the lifestyle; of the loud and wild party girl. It started with that concert, then sneaking out at night with her sisters just became Saturday nights. She just enjoyed the energy that could be found here, and the alcohol and drugs just came secondary. Of course, this didn't go well forever, at one house party Ashley got really drunk and found herself alone with a guy. She found him kind of hot, but he was getting way too aggressive when he forced himself on her. Ashley attempted to fight the guy off, but it was her sister that came to save her when she hit him in the back of the head with a lamp. Ashley desperately tore home and took a shower and tried to desperately forget what happened.

Afterward Ashley remembered what her mother told her and decided to quit while she was ahead and focus on her schooling. However, that encounter wasn't as simple as it first seemed; as that boy was a Type-Green Metahuman and she got a bit of the energy from him. She was compatible with the energy and that was enough to infect her. After a few months Ashley quietly manifested, but so did her sisters around the same time - exposed to the Delta-Energy from different sources. Ashley realized her power when, while fooling around with her sisters, accidentally upgraded Olivia's power. This was a scary experience and they had a long sit down about their powers; Olivia had the ability to mutate animals into horrific monsters and Krystal had the ability to produce sonic screams.

After some experimenting, they figured out what Ashley's power was; the ability to upgrade the powers of other Metahumans and borrow their powers. Of course, Ashley was very hesitant to tell FAMA and register her power because she was frightened that they may try to use her as a weapon. She heard the stories and didn't want to be used as a tool, so she kept her power a secret. What they didn't realize was that Ashley did was upgrade Olivia's ability to working on people, too. When Olivia went to school a few days she accidentally brushed against a classmate and turned him into a monster. He went on a massive rampage that almost killed Olivia, so Ashley and Krystal teamed up to get their sister out of the line of fire. FAMA arrived on the scene shortly afterward and detained the monster... and Olivia.

You see, FAMA tracked it to Olivia and she was blamed for the accident, and she was whisked away to prison. To the outrage of the entire Stone family and they fought tooth and nail to get her out - to no avail. They also registered Ashley and attempted to get her arrested for dodging registration but when the Stones lawyered up, they managed to talk them down. They asked her to come to Academy 003 as a "settlement" for the whole situation which Ashley begrudgingly accepted (against the wishes of her father) due to the fact she wanted to learn how to use these stupid powers.

Type-Green

Power Manipulation is a good umbrella term for Ashley's ability. When her ability manifested, Ashley gained an interaction with the Delta-Point energy. While she hasn't realized her full potential yet, but Ashley is capable of making alterations to the powers of Metahumans around them. She won't be able to, say, turn someone with super strength into a light-bender, but she'll be able to make alterations. She potentially has the capability of becoming the most powerful Metahumn in existence. It'll take decades upon decades of learning the ins and outs of her ability before she reaches that point - so it'll be unlikely if the ability's true potential ever comes into play in this story. At the moment, her power is more of boosting powers. Her power comes in four forms:

■ Power-Upgrading.

■ Power-Sponsoring

■ Power-Granting.

■ Power-Immutability.

Ashley's upgrading power doesn't exactly have too many weaknesses, but it certainly has limits. For starters, no, she can't give herself any upgrades only other Metas. She can only give out an upgrade once every few days, which is a limit in place to make sure that she doesn't just go around giving everyone power boosts. She can only give out one upgrade per person and Ashley could also accidentally upgrade someone upon contact, nor can she control what type of upgrade she gives people. It doesn't matter whether or not that "someone" is a friend or a foe, she can't control it. Ashley's power sponsoring has a few limits, too and for starters, unlike true power replication, it relies on the other person's consent. If she isn't allowed to use their power, then she'll be powerless. She doesn't know how to use the power right off the bat, and due to the nature of it, it's unlikely she'll become super skilled in it either. It also depends on how close she is to the person; further away she is, the weaker the power gets. There's a range of upward fifteen meters and if she leaves this range, she'll lose the power and will have to request to use it again. Finally, while there's technically no limit to how many powers Ashley can borrow, the more she absorbs, the less stable they get. The harder to control they all will be, they will backfire, function incorrectly, and eventually, she'll overload and lose all of her powers. Afterward, she'll go through what is best described as a hangover, but will still be able to function enough to copy powers again. Ashley can grant as many peoples as people she comes in contact witth - however there is no off-switch for her power. Skin to skin contact will grant someone a power whether she wants to or not. Her Power-Immutability means she can't get benefits from powers such as charging, and etc, etc.

There aren't a lot of weaknesses for her ability, the main weakness is that there's no directly offensive ability and when she gets "sponsored" she gets the weaknesses of the original. In addition, her power is very valuable to all the wrong people, and this makes her a target.

Mira or Kash (Because some people can' say her name right!)

Female

17

It's not difficult to tell where Kashmira was born and raised. Her facial features and skin tone are distinctly featured from the Indian-sub continent (the southern area, of course), and she speaks with a very thick Indian accent - however she dresses more "American" than a walking stereotype (that's only for special occasions). The girl seems to carry herself with caution in mind, she usually takes slow steps but most of all watch her step. She usually keeps her hands together in front of her, or at her sides. A lot of people get the idea that she's rather tense given the way that she carries herself and the fact that she's very easy to startle. It's not the case innately, but she unintentionally gives off that kind of impression.

In terms of build, Kashmira is a very small girl at just an inch below five-feet due to genetics alone. The girl finds it easy for herself to get into small spaces but always find it incredibly hard to get noticed. She's extremely slim, bony, even due to a mixture of her diet and the fact that she practices yoga every day so she gets plenty of exercises. She doesn't have a whole lot of muscle-tone nor does she have a lot of body fat, but what fat she does have is merely padding for the girl. She has some curves with 36Bs and some hips, but nothing that'd make heads turn. India is a very diverse place, and Kashmira has roots from the Keralite people (and other Indians mixed in but they're rather distant). Her skin tone is a little dark but nothing major and she has a very pronounced nose with a large nose ring, and her eyes are large and a brown color - packing a striking gaze within them. Kashmira has long shoulder-length hair that's a dark brown color and is very well-maintained, and it's naturally a little wavy - she doesn't keep it in any style.

♦ Kind ♦ Devout ♦ Idealistic ♦ Respectful ♦ Careful ♦ Compassionate ♦ Eagar to learn ♦ Slow to anger but a handful once agitated ♦ Somewhat eccentric ♦ Wise ♦ Jumpy ♦ Stubborn ♦ Refuses to hurt people ♦

To begin, Kashmira was born in and grew up in India to two loving parents, but she had a twin sister Tala. Her family tree is quite complex because her grandparents had thirteen children, and she is just one of a legion of grandchildren. Growing up in Ahmedabad, life wasn't particularly hard for the girl, she grew up playing and hanging out with the other children and she was raised to be a devout following of Shaivism. Her early life wasn't particularly eventful other than the fact that she learned English and Hindi while in school in order for her to effectively communicate with other Indians. Life was going to as ordinary for the girl; she was going to grow up to become an amazing young woman that would strive to achieve Dharma. However, it came to Ahmedabad, the Beast, they called it, Kasmira now realizes that the thing had shaped her modern life. A powerful Metahuman that had been rampaging across Europe and Asia for decades and went on a rampage in her home city. It was a violent experience that haunts Kashmira, and worst of all she was separated from her parents.

As a little girl wandering through a destroyed city was a chilling experience that Kashmira really does not want to experience again. However, she noticed a red light coming from one of the buildings and wandered inside... and found a really weird red crystal. She grabbed the crystal and stuffed it into her pocket, and eventually was reunited with her family after the coast was clear. Given that her home was destroyed she found herself living with her uncle's family in Hyderabad until she got a new place to live. She held onto the crystal but felt oddly strong when holding it, and while playing with it, she had inadvertently caused a chunk of the building she was in to fall off. It was a scary experience, but she realized that she had done it with a bit of experimentation and realized that she can control stone. Eventually, she showed her twin Tala, and also showed her the crystal - but upon contact with the crystal, her entire body started glowing a red energy. Eventually, Tala manifested with the ability to create and control wood.

They practiced with it and inadvertently attracted the attention of all the wrong people. When Kashmira was walking home from school, she took time to stop at her favorite place to kick a soccer ball. There was no one around... until she eventually smelled smoke and turned around to see Abel himself, smoking a cigar. The girl was terrified by the titan, but he stated that he meant no harm and that he tracked a Delta-Crystal to the area and asked her if she knew anything. The young Kashmira merely shook her head and Abel pressed on. In the end, Abel went on his way but she was terrified by the experience, so she ran home and grabbed the crystal and threw it into a river hoping that would be the end of their problems. However, they just started - the next night strange men were hanging around their household, and eventually made a move and broke in and held the family captive, demanding the crystal. Kashmira, out of guilt for starting the whole mess, told them that she threw the Delta-Crystal away.

Abel soon made his appearance and requested that she lead him to it. So, Kashmira walked through the streets of Hyderabad with the world's most feared terrorist walking behind her. The streets were cleared by his mere sight and the police, military, and Metahuman regulation had no clue what to do without endangering Kashmira. Eventually, she let him to where she threw the crystal and he walked into the river and after a moment he came back with it. He merely walked past her, cryptically saying "We have come to terms." before walking into a portal and his REAPERS pulled out. Her family was heavily questioned by the authorities, but ultimately they couldn't get a lead on the elusive REAPER organization.

This was, among other reasons, why the Sarai family ultimately made the decision to move to America - where Kashmira's grandmother lived. They settled in New York, Staton Island, and life wasn't the easiest for the family at first - given that Tala and Kashmira are the only two in the family that knew more than a small amount of English. They eventually got a job at a restaurant that Kashmira's uncle had, and Kashmira, once she was of age. Though Kashmira and Tala finally met their grandmother in person at last - the aging woman was one of the first Metahumans in India and told her grandmother about all the adventures. Most of all, she gave Kashmira a necklace with the shard of a red Delta-Crystal in it and stated that it boosts the power of whoever wears it. She also explained that she used it when she was younger, but now that she's aged she has no more use for it. Kashmira nearly rejected it out of fear of Abel, her grandmother insisted that it was a dark, cold, harsh place out there and that she needs every tool in her disposal to survive. The words resonated with Kashmira given her encounters with Abel, and chose to take the crystal - only to use in the most desperate of all situations.

Eventually, Kashmira received a letter in the mail; an invitation to Academy 03. Apparently, she won the "invitational lottery" out of complete chance, and decided to head to the academy at the recommendation of her grandmother.

Type-Red

Kashmira's main power she received on contact with the red crystal, she's capable of manipulating all forms of stone; whether natural or artificial. At it's most basic her manipulation allows her to move and shape the earth, however her control is a more refined version of it. Instead of raw power her ability primarily focuses on precision. While she can't cause a landslide or collapse a building with a snap of her fingers she can create functionally anything out of stone. She can erect walls, pillars, spikes, and more out of the group, and send chunks of stone flying. Kashmira finds it easier to control smaller stone than larger pieces. Kashmira has to do this through body motions, so she can launch objects out of the ground by stomping her foot and can knock over stone pillars by casually pushing her hand over. It can it any body movement, as it's a connection between her power mind and body. Kashmira has a ton of potential with her ability and has plenty of advanced techniques in her arsenal. Such as creating weapons/armor, flying using her ability, and controlling sand.

Kashmira's Stone-Manipulation has a painfully short range - around sixteen feet of herself, but she can best control stone that is closest to her. Kashmira has the easiest time manipulating smaller pieces of stone than larger chunks. So that example of her erecting a pillar out of the ground? It would be very tiring and straining on the girl. As stated before, her ability is more focused on precision than raw power so she has an easier time shaping a stone surface than making earthquakes. Seemingly, she feels as if her power is more focused on creativity than destruction. Her stone manipulation requires contact with the ground or contact with the stone surfaces. The purity also plays a part as stone that's diluted with other elements such as concrete is harder to control.

Kashmira has a lot of potential and physical strength that can't be ignored, and FAMA classifies her as a high-level threat. However, Kashmira is a mighty-glacier, she has a lot of strength, but it requires that she's slow-moving or immobile in order to use her power. Mixed with the pathetic range and the fact that she's not too fast herself, her power will leave her helpless if she has to deal with a faster moving opponent. Using her ability causes nausea, physical weakness, and more - which gets even worse if she tries to do an extreme feat. Due to the fact that stone is heavy, it's very difficult to use the ability in the first place and far more tiring than other elements.

Tiffany Zhang

Tiff, sometimes. Mostly by close friends and family

Female

18

▸ HEIGHT : | Five feet, four inches
▸ WEIGHT : | 116 pounds
▸ ETHNICITY : | East Asian (Chinese, specifically)
▸ HAIR COLOR : | Black
▸ EYE COLOR : | Brown

Friendly, outgoing, energetic, welcoming, optimistic, determined, talkative to the point of being annoying, impulsive, a bit shallow and superficial, silly, slightly ridiculous, really extra, super girly, comes off as a bit of an airhead, loves everything pink and sparkly

» Running in high heels of any sort (and outrunning you while she's at it)

» She's a very good listener, despite her reputation as a ditzy airhead cheerleader

» Besides English, she also speaks Chinese and Spanish...sort of (she's been taking Spanish since sixth grade, so she's gotta be fluent, right????)

» Making anything and everything look aesthetically pleasing. Especially her notes from class

» Nimble and flexible and lithely strong from her years of cheerleading, gymnastics (both rhythmic and artistic), and dance. She's also quite good at tumbling; ya girl can effortlessly throw a round-off Arabian double-back handspring sequence while reciting every brand of make-up that she's every used

» Applying sparkly pink eyeshadow while checking Instagram while operating a motor vehicle. Does that count?

Tiffany's life has been, up until now, completely, utterly normal.

That's not to say that it was boring, of course. Tiffany had a ton of fun just being a normal girl at a normal school with a normal life. In fact, she liked it-she liked being a cheerleader, she liked Starbucks runs before school and sneaking out at lunch to get Chipotle, she liked football games and homecoming and prom, she liked shopping with her friends on the weekends and, well, she could put up with school on the weekdays.

Tiffany's family was pretty normal, too-she had a sister, five years older than her, and a mom and a dad and grandparents and cousins, just like everybody else. Her mother was a translator; her father an engineer. Her family was, for all intents and purposes, perfectly run-of-the-mill.

When she was four or five, Tiffany's mom signed her up for Chinese dance lessons being held in their Maryland hometown, and Tiffany found herself liking it very much. Later on, she would add in a whole range of related activities-ballet, rhythmic gymnastics, artistic gymnastics, jazz, lyrical, et cetera-only to give those up, one after another, as she got bored.

The one thing she stuck with, however, was cheer. Something about the inherent energy in the sport appealed to Tiffany, and besides. Being a cheerleader seemed so cool.

In high school, Tiffany joined the cheer team, and she loved every minute of it. Sure, there were times when it got stressful or tiring, but those were always outweighed by the awesome friends she made. The actual "school" part of high school wasn't as great-Tiffany didn't necessarily flunk out, but she wasn't making the honor roll, either. Her teachers would always accidentally call her by her sister's name, which was made even more annoying by the fact that she'd been valedictorian when she graduated, but whatever. Tiffany didn't really care.

Senior year, spring semester, was when Tiffany's life was turned upside down. It should have been one of the easiest semesters of Tiffany's entire high school career-she had already chosen to go to school in Baltimore with a bunch of her friends, and she had major senioritis and was so looking forward to prom and beach week and then summer vacation (finally) when the incident happened.

Tiffany had been out camping in the mountains for spring break, with a couple of friends from school. Normally, she wouldn't have agreed to such a thing (the "I-haven't-showered-for-three-days" look is so not her style), but one of her best friends had begged her to come, citing the fact that her ex would be there (and that she would totally need someone to vent to in case said ex did something, you know?), so Tiffany went, albeit a bit begrudgingly.

On the third or fourth day, the group of high schoolers went hiking. What should have been a pleasant, relaxing hike turned into something slightly less pleasant and relaxing as Tiffany's BFF fled from the marked trail, in tears over something her ex said. Tiffany, of course, chased after her (ignoring her hair and nails for the time being, which came out of the entire ordeal so messed up), and ended up catching up to said BFF. The two of them found a small cave-like opening in the rocks to sit and rest and catch their bearings, but Tiffany had just barely stepped foot into the cave thingymajiggy when she felt...weird.

Unbeknownst to Tiffany and her friends, the cave had contained a Delta-Crystal, though it wouldn't be until later on in the semester until her powers began to manifest. And when they did manifest, Tiffany freaked, à la White Chicks "I'm going to have a BF!". She didn't particularly want to be a Metahuman, thank you very much-she was supposed to have a normal life, even if it was pretty useful to be able to use her newfound abilities to get her make-up done faster.

When her parents realized what had happened, they were able to pull some strings to get her into one of the Academies meant specifically for Metahumans, since Tiffany's aunt on her mother's side worked for FAMA. Tiffany was not too happy to learn that, instead of going to college with her friends, she would instead be attending an Academy where she knew absolutely no one. But, of course, there was nothing that she could do about it.

All Tiffany wants to do is finish school at the Academy and get back to her old life as fast as she can. Is that really too much to ask?

Vincent Felix Garcia

↪ Vince
↪ Vinny
↪ V.G.

Male

Eighteen

The first thing that people might notice about Vincent is his height, while he's not that tall or that short, people tend to always ask him how tall he is. He stands at five foot eleven inches tall but somehow appears much shorter than that in other people's eyes. Vincent weighs in at one hundred and sixty pounds with a well-toned and muscular frame that he likes to keep up with so he constantly works out. His hair used to be shoulder length and a medium brown color but recently had it trimmed down to a shorter length and colored to resemble the feathers of a raven bird. He likes to keep his hair unkempt and occasionally runs his fingers through it.

His eyes are a dark brown color and almond shaped and usually wears clear contacts. Not because he cannot see or anything but just to bring his eyes out a little bit more. Vincent is of mixed race, Mexican and American, and his fairly light skin displays the combination quite well. He does not sport a beard or mustache and really likes that the fact his skin is really smooth and free of blemishes and scars. Just to add that many people say that his most distinctive feature is his cheekbones.

Vincent used to be a casual dresser and even dressed in bright colors. While he still does from time to time, his main style of choice takes a rather grunge-like approach. No matter what the weather is like outside he'll always have on his black leather jacket along with a black t-shirt of some sort. Again, he doesn't dress like that every single day, just every other day. Vincent also has an assortment of black boots and those are about the only shoes that he wears.

✧ Approachable ✧ Flirtatious ✧ Overprotective ✧ Idealist ✧ Likes to argue sometimes ✧ Fiercly loyal ✧ Emotional at times ✧ Sarcastic

Bilingual ✧ Since he is of mixed race, Vincent can speak Spanish, which he's more used to thanks to his mother and English fluently.

Reading people ✧ Vincent can easily tell people's intentions before they even make their next move. He'll be silent about it though and just hang in the background.

Quick Thinker ✧ He's very quick on his feet when he comes to answering questions or getting himself and others out of certain types of situations.

Protective ✧ Vincent is a somewhat of a nice guy sometimes and for those that cannot defend themselves, he will be there to defend for them.

Vincent was born and raised in Mexico City, Mexico to two wonderful parents, Felix and Diana Garcia. His life was perfect much simple growing up, to be honest. He did not really have or even wanted the finer things in life and that was absolutely okay with him. But they weren't poor or anything, they had just enough money to get by, which means they had enough to paid the bills and put food on the table. As long as Vincent ate, that was all they really cared about.

Vincent was a very sensitive person growing up. The littlest words that someone said to him got to him easier and he would just sit there and take it. He wasn't ever bullied but people just knew about his sensitivity and took advantage of it every chance that they got. Over time though, he began to feel something strange developing within him and even mentioned it to his parents. They felt as if he was too young to know the real story yet and just saved the real story for another day. His parents often told him to just ignore his feelings and that's what he did but that strange feeling kept coming back.

As about two years went by, he was finally sat down by his parents as they explained to him about what he was. They even told him that the energy came from a crystal that they came across while taking a walk along the beach whenever he was about six years of age. How did it get there? No one knew but this information confused him deeply and he did not know what to say. He kind of just wished that the information was kept away from him because now, he wanted to become better at whatever this was that he had. Many things happened around this time with his newfound ability. He felt other people emotions and those affected him, he could even tell when someone was lying. Vincent wanted further training with others that were just like him or that could teach him how to be better at his abilities.

His parents then heard of an academy being opened up for metahumans, which is what he was and immediately signed him up for it. There were no ifs, ands or buts about it because they were going to send him regardless. They were rejected multiple times at first and had no idea as to why. Vincent became enraged about this and wondered what he had to do to get accepted into this academy.

But what else Vincent did not know is that his grandfather used to work for FAMA and sort of left a bad expression upon his resignation but they came over to their home to talk it over. Vincent sat in on the conversation and deemed one of the men as a liar and the man asked how did he know that and Vincent explained it to him. Even though he had no earthly clue as to what he was saying himself. But after about a two-hour visit, they finally gave in, mostly because they could not tell any more lies around Vincent and accepted him.

He felt absolutely stunned to be going to whatever kind of academy it was. No one really explained it to him in depth but he just guessed that he was going to have to see whenever he got there. He did not mind going into the unknown but just hopes that it isn't some sort of trap.

Type-Blue

Empathy
Vincent has the ability to interpret, replicant, sense, feel and even understand the emotions of others. He can attack someone personally and emotionally since he knows exactly what they are feeling in particular situations and can use that knowledge to his advantage.

Lie Detection
Vincent can sense when someone is lying since it causes an irregularity in their emotions.

Telempathy (not quite advanced at this)
Vincent can communicate with others using emotions. He can receive others emotions and even perceive what others feel whenever they're thinking.

• For his Telempathy, he can only read a certain amount of people at a time. Some emotions might not even work to his advantage, too. His ability may be limited by touching another person for his to be able to read their emotions.

• For Lie Detection, if he trusts someone that he cares about then he might not be able to tell if they are lying or not. Cannot sense the reasons behind most lies. Will not be able to tell the difference between a white lie or a secret.

• For Empathy, he cannot use this against people that are emotionless. He also experiences migraines from time to time from extensive use of this ability, too. Cannot handle a large number of emotions at one time and cannot receive emotions sometimes, as well.

Combat • Vincent is pretty useless in a fight, especially hand to hand combat.

Confrontation • It's almost no secret that Vincent dislikes confrontation of any kind along with conflict. Sure, he has to tolerate it while he's at the academy but overall, he does not like it.

Emotions • So, his powers are centered around his and other people's emotions but he can be unstable, at times and that might cause his ability to not work properly.

• Vincent did not graduate high school and unfortunately dropped out in the middle of his sophomore year because he could not take the feelings that he was having and could not really explain to anyone. Plus, he grew tired of getting migraines all the freaking time, too. He also spent some time in a juvenile delinquent facility when he was twelve for stealing from a convenience store.

Reyna Baker

Rain, Rey/Ray, Big Buff Cheeto Puff

Female

19

Reyna is athletic and it shows in her body. Her arms and legs are well toned, and she’s got the tracing of abs outlined on her torso. Even so, Reyna is a woman who doesn’t reject her femininity and occasionally indulges in self-pampering when it suits her and time allows her to. She isn’t very tall, standing at the modest height of 5’6”, leaving her looking up at most other athletes and gym-junkies and she weighs in at around 135 lbs., 28F – which is rather heavy for her size, but most of it is muscle that she has earned through her interests. She has a sturdy frame and has just a few curves around her waist and back. Underestimating her because of her size that isn’t so wise, since she packs a lot of strength in her figure. She practically exudes confidence and pride in her posture.

Button nose, thin eyebrows, smooth skin, freckles – the latter which are absolutely littered across her body, much to her chagrin, and there’s one in particular on her cheek which she refers to as “Big Bertha.” It’s not as noticeable as the spotlight effect would have her believe, since it’s not any different in coloration, it’s just larger than the rest of the freckles on her face. Her soft facial features are occasionally tarnished by a scowl, which is not her standard go-to disposition like her enthusiastic and full of life demeanor, but rather a reflection of her quick temper. When you do get to see her when she is excited, you witness the emboldening her green eyes and the stretching of her lips to form a toothy grin that shows well taken care of teeth. Her natural bright-red and curly hair is fashioned into a curly faux-hawk and is well groomed. There is little oil that naturally accumulates in her hair, so you’ll often see it lightweight and fluffy. She has scars over her knuckles from the various fights she has gotten herself in, on her fingertips from climbing on rock, bricks, and concrete, but overall, doesn’t have too many aside from a long one next to her left eyebrow.

She has a couple of accessories, which compose mostly of piercings. She has two piercings on her left outer brow, one tongue piercing, and piercings that nobody has any right knowing about. On her right shoulder blade is a simple tattoo of a compass, which she got without her father’s knowledge when she was younger, which is special for her. It has part to do with her love of adventure and part to do with, despite its simplicity. She also has an industrial bar in her right ear, and other accessories include three hemp necklaces which are hopelessly tangled together, and on each one, is a thin stainless-steel heart. On one, it says Merry, on another, it says Mia, and the third depicts a raised fist symbolizing empowerment. She also likes to wear a black plastic wire choker.

Her clothing is what one might call a mish-mash of style from both the girl’s side and the boy’s side of the clothing department. One of her favorite looks is wearing a loose and flowing white sundress that falls just barely below her knees, likely with a small, repeating print on it like Snoopy from Charlie Brown or the Misfits face logo, with a black and faux-leather jacket layered over the top of it. She completes the look with combat boot which climb just above her ankles or a pair of converse, and a wide-brimmed and floppy hat matching the dress she’s wearing. What you don’t get to see is the red tank-top underneath or the knee-length camouflaged cargo shorts underneath the dress, which is usually secured by a black fabric belt. Sometimes she changes up the style to seem more tomboyish or settle for a blouse and a pair of jeans. You'll never know with this girl.

But more on her jacket, it’s her iconic and signature article of clothing. Everyone knows about Reyna and her jacket, you simply don’t mess with it or ask her to take it off. It’s her thing, equated to her as much as Michael Jackson’s single glove or Freddie Mercury’s yellow jacket. It’s covered in patches, such as the raised fist on her necklace for female empowerment, a Misfits patch, a pink triangle, and a number of other patches that will be easier for me to bullshit on the spot in the middle of the RP.

She doesn't typically wear a lot of makeup, and it's not because she's intrinsically opposed to the idea. Beauty is one art form that she doesn't quite understand and doesn't really know how to make it work, plus it's an expensive hobby to maintain. The most she really bothers wearing is some eyeliner and the occasional nail polish.

She expresses herself freely and unabashedly. While unrelentingly cheerful, excitable, and playful on the surface, she is like an unmoving brick wall in any sort of conflict. If you disagree with her to any extent, she’ll tell you you’re wrong and will hold her ground. She was born with a quick temper that takes some time and attrition to coax down and is rarely the type to say sorry first, and this temperament was disciplined a fair bit after she took up a martial art, so she has a little more restraint and has gotten better at hiding her emotions, but that doesn't mean there still isn't a fire raging behind those blast doors. She’s also quite prideful of herself and she takes challenges and contests very seriously to the extent that she might be an obnoxious winner or bummed out loser, as either result can have a grand impact on her esteem and she has a tendency to carry all of her failures with her. She does a fantastic job at hiding her insecurities, but when her armor comes completely off, you'd be surprised to find how much baggage she's carrying.

Much of her tough competitive side stems from growing up in the densely populated city of Portland, Maine. With violent crime being disproportionately higher there than anywhere else in Maine, it meant that being tough equaled respect. There was also the fact that her father was never around, allowing her to easily plow over her hard-working father. When appealed to her interests however, she reacts in what many would consider exaggerated excitement. For example, she is an explorer at heart. She loves discovery and – surprisingly enough for a city girl – enjoys nature, especially at sites of caves, cliff faces, rivers, streams, or a remote location untouched by mankind. There also exists a fascination for bugs, fossils, artifacts, ancient relics and architecture, and bones. When these interests are appealed to, she shows a complete change in character: her eyes light up, a toothy grin from ear to ear, and her stern voice is replaced with what turns out to really be a talkative, excitable girl. This child-like giddiness often offsets anyone who is not wholly familiar with her and has only met with her abrasive side, and likewise, her innate aggression to those who have only seen her while she was happy. She also has a curious fondness for poetry—not that she practices, but she appreciates the art.

There are unique distinctions in the form of her interactions with others which are dependent upon the other’s gender. Even as someone who identifies as bisexual, she approaches men with greater caution and is usually dismissive of their advances after being spurned or harassed too many times. Even if acknowledging that a man might be attractive, she is still quick to judge and treats them with caution. She doesn't judge those who are or would engage in a relationship with someone who was an animal-based metahuman, though she wouldn't think she'd do so herself. She doesn’t make very many promises to herself, as she’s aware of her own reckless and impulsive behavior and if often at the mercy of her own sense of curiosity and wanderlust. One such example is the decision to travel out of state to attend Academy 003 – new life of exploration and discovery and to experience things that no one else has before. If Reyna has learned anything, it's that there is only one question she should ask herself before deciding anything: "Will I regret this?"

She has her shortcomings, such as her stubbornness and often narrow-minded approach to about everything. She isn’t academically inclined, and she finds studying in most cases to be a total snooze-fest, which might enable others to judge her as unintelligent despite her sharpness in other areas such as environmentalism. Despite her shortcomings, however, Reyna is an exuberant and faithful companion once you can look past her attitude. She exudes great positive energy when she’s in a good mood, and is very confident and flirty in social interactions, even if just to a playful or platonic extent. Once she considers you family, there’s virtually nothing that she’ll let stand in her way to protect you. While her disposition may allow her to thrive best while acting as a lone wolf, she prefers the sense of community that working in a team provides – just as expected from someone who puts so much value into family. If you ever even suggest any kind of threat regarding her sibling at all, no amount of reason will get in her way from trying to ensure their safety by breaking your legs.

Okay, so there are a couple of things that she is obviously good at, so let's get one thing out of the way so I don't act like it is a big surprise later: Reyna's a pugilist. She has a thing for boxing and kickboxing, and if there’s an octagon and she’s allowed to punch people, she gets excited. This should not come as such a huge surprise; for an active and competitive girl like her, this comes naturally. Fighting is essentially the epitome of competition and whoever comes out on top is the true victor, standing over the defeated – the experience of such a defeat being inescapable – and proclaiming dominance. Western martial arts are obviously much more aggressive styles than defensive eastern martial arts, which suits Reyna perfectly. Over time, her style has come to more closely resemble MMA.

Now, more alarmingly, her other skills are a lot gentler. With her knowledge from reading survival books ever since she was a kid, and her fascination with nature and exploration, she could get lost in the woods for a month and come back alright; she knows her shit. Reyna is also an artist to some degree. She has talent in it is confident in herself, but she doesn't feel so confident that she'd consider herself a professional or would be ready to make a career out of it, wanting to hone her craft before she starts taking commissions. But her work is good, there's no doubt about it, and she wants to be good enough so that she can give tattoos to people and to be a reliable enough artist to do so. Though, admittedly, she is hesitant about using her own body as a practice canvas. Otherwise, she can draw, paint, and sketch, both traditionally and on a digital format.

While not terribly gifted in the music and whimsy department, she does have a terrific singing voice from the years of practicing in the shower or singing her sister to sleep – if only she could seriously partake in that activity in public and not shut down if put in the spotlight. This is the only area where she isn't confident and suffers from stage-fright, and she'll fake or pretend terrible singing otherwise as though it were a joke to avoid judgement of her actual ability. If it is only her, her sister, and her cousin, then she would feel comfortable enough to sing her heart out.

In order to purchase her used motorcycle, which is evidence on its own of her impulsive decision making and lack of foresight, she got a job back in Maine at a fireworks store. Long story short, she knows how to make a couple of different kinds of fireworks and knows some trivia about fireworks. She loved it, and between that and living in downtown Portland, she can easily tell if an explosion came from a firework or a firearm when she hears it. Reyna also had the bad habit of forgetting her keys, so she was forced into the position of learning how to pick her own front door's lock way late at night.

Reyna was born to an unmarried family in Maine, a product of an accident to be honest, but they agree to birth her in the end. It was a typical babyhood at first, but with the dynamics in the family being rather conflicted, the relationship couldn’t work, and her mother left the house when she was young. Despite the disagreement between her parents, they never tried to separate her from either of them or alienate her. They mutually encouraged respect for both parents. Though being a single parent was a little rough on her father, they managed to truck right through the hardships, even though the father was never certain on how to raise a girl the traditional way. So, he rose her as he would any child, or what would be typically considered befitting of a boy. Being raised this way, she was never told to shy away from what was considered to be boys' toys or clothes or whatnot, and through all that, still maintained her “femininity” as typical people would call it.

During that time, her mother found another man, married, and had another child four years after her own birth. Her new half-sister was named Merry, and her surname, Bennet, took after her father's. Naturally, having already visited her mother every weekend, Reyna got to meet Merry at a very young age and got to spend much of her time growing up with her. Her young life went this pattern for a very long time. Every night she got to spend with her sister, she'd spend it singing lullabies until Merry fell asleep. It was a typical pattern. The next biggest change in her life was the year Reyna turned 13 years old. Her father took her and, with permission, Merry on a trip to a local state park. Naturally, with Reyna’s prankster disposition, snuck off with Merry and began exploring the woods on her own. Reyna was a good older sister in that she didn’t pressure her into anything that was too dangerous, and she didn’t run ahead on her own – she would’ve been a decent chaperone if she, personally, wasn’t so reckless. She made a bet with her sister that she could climb on top of this thirty foot tall boulder, and to her credit, she could – and she did, and when arrived at the top, found that there was much less space for her to stand than she thought, and the slickness of the moss on top of it caused her to slip and fall into a crevice that cracked the top of the boulder.

Merry’s screaming and crying and pleas for help eventually got the attention of Reyna’s father who was looking for them, who in turn called for the park ranger to help them. After a few hours, they arrived and were able to safely climb the boulder and lower themselves down into the crevice. There, they found Reyna with a gash on her forehead and wedged between two large and different colored crystals. It was that moment that sort of spurred her aspirations to become a ranger like them. More importantly however, between the extent of time she was exposed to the crystals and the highly stressful situation she was in, her powers developed a year later. It was noticed when she was able to perform physical activities for a long period of time without wearing out, perform greater feats of strength and speed, but easily dehydrate. She decided to take up boxing to help cope with the energy she had and to better control herself and her power – though another large part of it was that Reyna thought it would be fun, which explains why she didn't choose any eastern martial arts which were less aggressive and would have made more sense. Eventually though, as she and her powers matured, it became obvious to the other practitioners in the gym. She was much stronger and nearly three times as fast as the others, and the disparity in their abilities were enough to warrant asking her to leave.

That same year, Reyna's father introduced her to her extended cousin – their closest related family member being their great grand-mother – an older African-American girl named Mia, after convincing them to come into town. Her father knowing that Mia came from a town that was highly populated with meta-humans thought it would be good for his daughter to make friends with her. A crucial difference was that Mia came from Mendel, Louisiana, which meant a much dirtier and even more crime-ridden city than Portland due to gang violence, which had an influence on Mia and her disposition despite her kind demeanor. The relationship was a little tense at first due to their conflicting personalities, but they managed to befriend each other in due time. Mia made it a point to visit Maine often, for about a week or two every two or so months, even as cold as it was compared to the southern heat. She fortunately had the money to do so since both of her parents owned their respective tourist traps. They eventually grew to be inseparable. When all three could get together, they sang and played music together, fought together (or with each other), ate, slept, adventure, the whole works.

So when Reyna would be inflicted upon a certain trauma and indignity by someone who she suspected was a close friend, and in her moment of great stress, flames licked out from her body and burned the boy who assailed her. Cops were called and cops arrived. So, too, then did an ambulance. Then they brought her in for questions. They payed little heed to her own side of the story, dismissing it as a cover story for regretting typical teenage shenanigans or covering for her assault of a young man. She was a meta-human, how could a non-meta ever exercise any power over her? Reyna realized then that this would likely be politicized, either locally or on a much grander scale. They didn't care about the truth. They just cared about framing the event as meta on non-meta violence. When her father arrived at the station with Mia in tow, she curled into herself into their arms and sobbed helplessly. She couldn't bring herself to talk to her father, but she felt that Mia was someone who she could turn to for consolation. Fear, guilt, and uncertainty -- Mia washed them away and promised that she would see to it that nothing like that would ever happen again. Reyna never knew what happened with the boy afterward, but she never saw him again. Asking Mia turned up no answers other than, "Don't worry about him."

As Reyna got older, the process of going through high-school tends to socialize you to the larger world. The administration tries to get you connected to outside forces before you’re graduated so that you have an idea of which direction you want to go. She was able to receive state assistance due to her lower-income family and she received credits for her participating in art and music clubs and school sports like track or soccer, which was before they caught onto her meta-human status and decided that it gave her an unfair advantage over the other runners and players respectively. In this regard, her high-school experience wasn’t the happiest since she often felt like the grown-ups were deliberately trying to stunt her potential, and her middling grades in the academic side of the school (aside from Earth science and history) weren’t so impressive. She also spent a lot of time taking care of Merry, who was going through a trying time on her own as she began to enter puberty.

Still, all things considered, she seemed to have made enough of an impression upon graduation that, after she walked the stage and accepted her diploma, she would later be directed to talk to some FAMA ambassadors sitting at a table in one corner of the lobby. They suggested to apply to Academy 003, and once the application was received, they’ll perform an investigation and possibly send her an invitation letter. The invitation was permanent if she kept her record clean from that point on – no felonies or misdemeanors or anything, because then they’d have to launch another investigation and she’d have to wait even longer – but it meant that she could keep the letter as long as she wanted until she decided she wanted to go.

Even for someone as impulsive as Reyna, it was a difficult decision for her. She spent a lot of time trying to better educate herself on metahuman politics as she matured and the gravity of her abilities and their significance weighed on her, even as mind-numbingly boring politics was to her, so she knew what FAMA was all about and what the offer to join Academy 003 entailed. It was essentially a juvie of sorts, not in how only bad kids went there, but it was a sort of rehabilitation or conditioning center of sorts. It taught people how to be “functioning members of society.” Some people saw it alluring for the esteem it would grant in some circles – it was certainly a certifiable school of great repute, but other circles would see it as brainwashing, and attendance carried a stigma. Likewise, her father just wanted Reyna to be safe. Happy, but also safe. They agreed to let her apply, but to their surprise, the letter actually came – and they let it sit for a year, to let Reyna decide if she was ready to take such a huge step. It meant leaving home for a long time, but Reyna was an explorer at heart, so that wasn’t the issue. The issue was the uncertainty of her future. For once, the question she always asked herself, “will I regret this?” had no answer. Not one that she could provide, at least. She was wrought with enough anxiety about the question and about her future that her power singed the bed covers on more than one occasion.

Her father answered for her, “you’ll only regret never even trying.” He decided that it was best for her to learn how to control her power for good, and he was getting tired of buying new sheets and blankets for her. What’s more, having Academy 003 on her transcript might look pretty good on applications to future colleges. Besides, it was probably best to have an environmentalist or a park ranger who didn’t accidentally burn forests down on a routine basis. With that, her family saw off a nineteen-year-old Reyna at the train station where she’d head to South Carolina. From there, a taxi, and eventually to the front gates of the Academy 003 itself.

Type Chromatic

Rocket-Man Girl
Reyna has a peculiar combination of red and yellow Delta-Point energy that makes her: one, super strong; two, super-duper fast; and three, a little bit of fire for good measure. If she were to describe it, she'd say she's hot n' ready like Little Caesar's.

To pick back up what I’m breaking down, her speed is by far the crux of her power. She might be strong and wreathed in flame, but as far as comparing her powers to other, similar meta-humans, her speed is the most impressive. Her body’s endocrine system is at the ready, prepared to produce adrenaline at a moment’s notice, and filling to the brim with that sweet, sweet nectar. In fact, it’s slightly over-filled. A trickle of adrenaline slowly bleeds into her system and makes her ready to go. Though the type-yellow energy spread through her system, making everything tougher, stronger, and more reactive, it seemed to react better to areas of higher muscle density. This meant that her legs got most of the attention. She can spring from one place to another with powerful bounding leaps, or sprint with enough blistering speed to put Usain Bolt to shame and pounce atop of anybody unfortunate enough to proclaim themselves as her enemy before they even realize it. In this regard, it would be inaccurate to compare her to any record-holding human sprinter, but rather to a cheetah.

The energy affected her other abilities as well, not just her speed. Her arms and, hell, even the rest of her body get in on some of the fun as well. While her strength is not as comparable to her speed, she hides a lot of unassuming strength in her figure. Any person, regardless of fitness, can knock out or stagger someone with a good punch, but very few people can send you sliding back several feet after knocking you onto your ass. Her strength is such that it still exists within the realm of human achievement, but very few people short of a durability power are going to withstand a good slug coming from her direction. Combine that with the inertia she gets from her speed, and you’re down before you even realize what hit you. Because her system was souped-up from the Type-Yellow Delta-Point energy, she’s durable enough to withstand her own forces without seriously shattering herself.

The third component of her power comes from the traces of Type-Red energy. Compared to actual pyrokinetics, this aspect of her power is comparatively weak. It allows her to ignite the air around her and doing this is made relatively easier considering her super-system’s temperature it already hotter than average, and the friction that her high-speed movements has against the air gives it just enough of a push to make the actual effort of creating fire to be practically effortless. This means that, when she runs, if she so chose (and why wouldn’t she?) a streak of fire would probably be left where she was just a moment ago, and if she were to swing a punch, slow-motion capture would show a streak of flame from her fist and down to her elbow trailing behind her. For all intents and purposes, she is a literal trailblazer, and that adds just one more reason why you don’t want to be on her bad side. When all is said and done, you can see her standing post-carnage with plumes of steam rising from her body – from when the fire instantly evaporated her sweat.

Like a cheetah, the problem for Reyna is stamina. She can go fast, and for a short while, she can keep up the pace until she tires – and that kind of speed will tire quickly. An overall stronger system with that juicy adrenaline allows her to recuperate quickly and allow her another brief burst of speed, but that time she can keep that would be even shorter. It is best used for short spurts and not for an endurance race. While her perception is just reactive enough to get a pretty good idea of what she’s doing, it’s not so great that she’ll be able to notice sudden and immediate changes in her environment while she’s moving quickly. She has no control over fire beyond what she can produce. She might also be strong enough to just barely lift a small car enough for someone to slide a jack underneath it, but not strong enough to flip it on its side and send it rolling.

Her power, for the most part, keeps Reyna from hurting herself too badly. Everything is kind of just “scaled up” so to speak, and while the force of a punch wouldn’t shatter her hand, it would hurt her as much as any fistfight would. A weird punch against a bony part of someone’s body might break her knuckle, even if that meant shattering the other person, but still. Perhaps more obviously is the fact of her endocrine system in overdrive. She’s much more prone to being dehydrated because of her power, so she must drink about as much water as a factory worker to keep herself going. This is one more reason why prolonged fights don’t work out so well in her favor. It’s also worth noting that inertial forces are incredibly strong and aren’t so easy to resist once you’ve built up enough kinetic energy. Once she’s in movement, it’s a little hard to stop herself.

Ruby Choi

No nickname, just Ruby.

Female

Eighteen

Ruby stands at five feet seven inches and weighs in at around one hundred and twelve pounds. The first facial feature you’ll recognise of her are those highly distinctive chocolate brown eyes that she possess. Her face is oval in shape, her nose pert, and her lips a healthy shade of pink. In times of happiness, darling little dents of delight appears on her youthful visage, the dimples ever present whenever any form of smile or grin makes itself known. Her long straight hair is a lovely shade of raven black that complements her fair ivory skin very well. It has been dyed both brown and red in the past.

She is known to alter it according to a particular phase or mood she may be going through during certain periods in her life. Although she occasionally wearing her chest-level hair down, Ruby usually wears her hair up in a ponytail or plaited down her front to allow her ease of movement in her daily activities. Ruby's eyebrows are neatly plucked and well maintained and her flawless ivory complexion boasts a hint of golden undertones and is unblemished without any physical scars. Her face shape is somewhere between 'oval' and 'heart-shaped'. Her features and long and slender and her physique is slim and feminine looking, edging on the athletic side of things, honed from years of ballet and cheerleading training. Ruby is not one to seen with plenty of make-up on, only simply putting on the basic necessities such as some light foundation, lipstick and eyeliner.

Clothing wise, Ruby's personal style is all about bright or pastel colours. She can usually be seen in printed t-shirts, crop-tops and blouses along with either pants, jeans or skirts. Dresses is also another common sighting in her wardrobe. When its colder outdoors, she tends to put on a turtleneck sweater or jacket. She's not one to go for big branded goods over smaller name brands.

Friendly, introverted, kind, disciplined, stubborn, hopeful, persistent, quirky, really extra, weird sense of humour, sort-of-charming, strong will, determined, easily content and excitable, tend to be sarcastic at times

» She is nimble, agile and flexible from many years of ballet and cheerleading training. Be it somersaults or leg splits or other acrobatic maneuvers, none of them pose any problem for her.

» She is a great listener. Being a introverted sort means she usually hangs back to listen to others speak while she gathers her thoughts and form her own opinions before speaking.

» She is able to speak English, Korean and Chinese.

» Don't let her appearance fool you, although she is a ballet dancer and a cheerleader, she is also trained in karate since young, so while she is no black belt, she is more than proficient in close quarters combat.

Ruby was born on balmy summer’s day, on a day where the sun actually made a bold presence in the constantly snowing sky of a mid december morning. Her parents, Richard and Angela had been trying unsuccessfully for months to get a child, and the birth of the only child in the between the pair would come highly appreciated. She’d truly been their last shot, for her mother had sworn to give up should there be another failure in their attempts. The Chois were an enormously wealthy family who came from a long line of old money that stretched all the way to their ancestors first successes during the Ancient Joseon era in Korea. Her father had one other brother among his four siblings, and his younger brother had already one-up him by having a son months before her mother even got pregnant. Although Richard was disappointed by the fact of having a daughter, he had never let it be known.

The way he treated the young Ruby with such dutiful care and affection, no one would have ever suspected otherwise. Born with a silver spoon in her mouth, she never had to worry about money and had whatever you desired, be it that pony she had for her sixth birthday, or flying to the US for a birthday holiday. Her education was reserved for private schools, where she mixed around with those of the wealthy upper class. Her family’s name was too well-known to mix around with the rest of the populace in the public schools as her family elders felt. Richard soon had plans to expand his business into the United States, and he moved the family over and where they would start a new life over in a new country. Ruby was very unhappy about the situation. She had established a great company of friends, a stable life and everything she needed and was comfortable with. Now, she had to start all over in a foreign country where she had to learn the culture and make new friends. Fortunately, she did not have to deal with learning the language, as she was brought up to learn both Korean and English simultaneously and thus, already fluent in both.

In a bid to occupy her time, Ruby resumed the same hobbies she had back in Korea, Ballet and Karate. She trained hard at them, trying to spend her time there to compensate for the problems she faced at school. Her father was unhappy with the tantrums she had thrown since their move and had emphasised over and over that she was resuming her martial arts training whether she liked it or not. He mentioned that it would be a good way for her to train her discipline since she had been particularly lacking in it. Begrudgingly, she went along with it. It was not like she hated Karate or anything. She actually found it a good way to release all that pent-up anger. The one thing she lacked right now? Friends. Real friends. Companionship. Despite her family’s wealth and her likeable personality, She wasn’t exactly popular with these lot. She had no idea why. She just didn’t quite fit in with the rest. After having another one of those big fights she had been having since they came to the States, Ruby ran away from home, heading into the heavily forested areas behind the family's large estate. Hours past and soon night fell, Ruby didn't want to admit it, but she was totally and utterly lost. She was getting more and more tired of the whole ordeal by the minute and just wanted to go home, but the whole forest looked the same everywhere and she was no closer to getting home than she was two hours ago. The girl was lost.

She eventually stumbled upon a strange red glowing light from the mouth of a cave, and with her curiosity piqued, there was no way Ruby was not going to take a look inside. It was there she came face-to-face with a Type-Red crystal, basking her face and her whole body in a red glow as she felt a weird tingling sensation pass over her. Running away from the cave, she eventually tripped over an overgrown tree root and fell face first onto the ground before she blacked out. When she woke, Ruby was already back at home, in her room on her bed, gazing onto the shocked expression of her maid servant who ran to alert her parents. Her parents soon came to check in on her, and she apologised for the whole ordeal before she told them what she had seen in the woods. Richard was a a donor and also had close ties to the FAMA director in the city and he understood exactly what his daughter had seen. He knew that it was only a matter of time before her abilities would manifest in some shape or form.

That day came soon enough two years later when Ruby almost burned down half the family's mansion when she was having a rather violent nightmare that night. The night guard had seen the fire from his post outside the mansion and alerted the fire department immediately. It was highly fortunate that there was no loss of life, only a very frightened girl and the loss of property and damages from the fire. After this incident, Richard knew that he could wait to further, and he asked his friend for a favour and the both of them made arrangements for Ruby to attend the academy so that she could learn to better control her powers.

Type-Red

Fire Manipulation
Ruby has the pyrokinetic ability to control fire. Together with her unflinching will and strong determination, she can generate fire energy that is fueled by her body's own life force that is reflected through a variety of positive and negative emotions that help augments and reflects her abilities. Although she can create her own fire, she is also able to control or enhance any fire or flames near by. One of the most popular ways she utilises her powers it to fuse it in her martial arts prowess, using swift whirling kicks and punches to create diverse shapes for offensive attacks. Quick flurries of kicks and punches allows her to retain great mobility while she tries to push back her enemy/opponent into uncomfortable territory. Apart from these, she is also able to create the more conventional techniques such as fireballs and other projectiles, breathe fire and also makes her immune to fire and being burnt.

Having a great sense of control, will and discipline is paramount to retaining control over her powers. Unconscious, or use of powers during uncontrolled emotional distress state can lead to disastrous consequences.The skill, size, and speed of projectiles and other manipulations is still solely based on how good is she with her powers and her knowledge of how to control and properly utilise them. Although she can create fire, she is still bound by the nature of the fire triangle. Oxygen, Fuel and Heat are all requirements for there to be fire, no matter the circumstances. When it comes to breathing fire, breathing techniques play a big role in its success. It comes not from physical size or strength, but from proper display of technique. Self-restraint and breath control are key skills of any fire breathers, and they are usually mastered before those with fire manipulation move on to other abilities.

There are actually quite a number of weaknesses that weakens this power significantly. Extreme cold would be the first one. Cold temperatures lowers a person's internal body energy which makes creating fire difficult as without external sources, fire is created through her own energy. However, a person with a stronger will than usual can still dig deep enough to warm themselves up enough. Her style of applying her abilities has been very much offensive related, lacking any real defensive techniques because there isn't many ways fire can be used for defense(or at least what she knows about). Fire is by nature a confrontational element, and thus her defense so far has been only a strong offence. Another important thing to possess the inner drive and fire within one person. Once they lack the drive and motivation to pursue towards a common goal, their fire becomes weak and no longer as capable of reaching their highest potential. Self control and restraint is something that those with fire manipulation has to always maintain as fire is as fickle a tool as it is a punishment. Those who underestimate it will have to deal with the consequences.

Kassandra Keigwan.

Kassy, Kass.

Female.

17.

Kassandra is 5'6” and still growing. She is pudgy, but not really out of shape. She has dark brown skin that glows with health and life. Her hair is black and tightly curled, and she wears it in a short, vibrant cut. She has sad-seeming brown eyes and a generally hunched posture, as if she's trying to vanish. Her voice, when she actually has the courage to speak up, is husky and melodic. When she smiles, her whole face lights up.

She wears feminine clothing, lots of skirts and jewelry. A hippie/earthen sort of style.

Kassandra is nervous and shy. She is usually soft spoken, and really believes that no one really wants to hear what she's got to say. If she's on her own, she seems to open up more and can be very warm hearted and sweet. However, when faced with too many peope, she goes right back into her little shell.

Illusions, singing, swimming, has good grades and is generally intelligent.

Kassy is from a small east coast town. There is a low population of Metahumans, so she grew up pretty isolated. She used to travel the country with her parents, her mother being a well known advocate for Metahuman rights, and her father assisting in the endeavor. It was slightly ironic that the 2 of them had a metahuman child. Not everyone liked what Kassandra's parents did, and her mother fell mysteriously ill after a run in with some anti metahuman protesters. Unfortunately, she died shortly after that. Kassy's father was distraught. He lost the love of his life, and in his grief, decided to drop Kassy off at his sister and brother in law's house, promising to return to her. Unfortunately, he never did.

Kassy grew up with her aunt and uncle who really didn't want much to do with her. Her aunt was not good to her, belittling her at every turn and calling her a 'freak' and 'disaster' on a regular basis. While she tried to make friends growing up, she was already of the assumption that everyone else would hate her too, so she wasn't very good at reaching out to other people. Most of the time, she practiced her powers in secret, honing them until they were under her control. However, she is still very untested, due to hiding her nature most of her life.

Kassy was working at a part time job, trying to work up money to get out of town, when her invitation to the Academy came. If her family hadn't been glad to be rid of her, she would have found some way to get there. While she is very unclear about what she can actually do, a small part of her is eager to step out of the shadows of the past.

Type-Blue

Illusions: Kassandra can trick all of the 5 senses with various illusions. She is best with visual and auditory illusions, though her range is slowly expanding to the rest of the senses. Her most complex tricks so far are to make herself completely invisible, imitate the look and sound of someone's voice after studying them, and to make a “gunshot” noise in someone's ears. She is also slowly learning touch illusions, but so far hasn't gotten past a tap on the shoulder or a brush of a hand. When she gets better, this could expand to actual pain or other sensations.

Kassy's powers have a range of about 30 feet. She can trick up to 5 people at once, with her most versatile trick, invisibility, which she can hold for up to 5 full minutes. The more simple an illusion is, the longer and more people she can affect. She is also working on smell illusions, but so far hasn't gotten past creating a whiff of fresh baked cookies. Pleasant, but useless.

Kassy's illusions can be 'beaten' if they don't quite match up with reality. An individual who is paying enough attention could notice that what they are sensing is not real. She is still practicing and gaining experience, so this could improve with time. However, there will always be people who will see through her easier than others.

Kassandra's illusions can't work through techology yet. Someone seeing her through a camera or other device won't be fooled. She also has to concentrate to a certain degree, and the illusions will drop if she's properly distracted or hindered. Currently, she is someone who is easily cowed by screaming or harsh criticisms. She's also a little leery about teamwork – she thinks everyone else will be miles ahead of her.

Richard Joseph Blume

Rich. His FAMA agent handlers used to call him "Gold Rush" sometimes.

Male

16

5’7” with a precariously skinny build. Rich is innately unathletic and weak-looking. He’s very bony, with knobby elbows and knees. He has long arms and legs, a kind of gangly build. His skin is fairly pale and plain, with acne occasionally but no real distinguishing scars or tattoos. His hands are thin with long fingers and well-kept short nails. He has narrow shoulders and a long neck. He has a prominent nose that gives him a birdlike persona and a strong jawline. His whole face is thin. Framing his hazel eyes are dark eyebrows that make him always look concerned. His ears are of about average size and lay flat against his head, and he has two stud earrings in the left ear. Rich’s hair is naturally brown, but he dyes it a platinum blond color. He typically keeps up on the color well, but occasionally it can be seen peeking through from the roots. He sweeps his hair to the left and generally keeps it short. His voice is fairly high for a boy, and he has a slightly southern drawl.

Urban teenager. Rich wears a lot of dark clothing, greys and blacks mostly. His clothing is generally v-necks, hoodies, and dark skinny jeans. As of late, Rich has been trying to get more bright-colored clothes, and he’s begun to mix light purples and pinks into his wardrobe. On his feet he wears a pair of black vans.

Reserved ♦ Quiet ♦ Polite ♦ Loner-type ♦ Low self-esteem

He’s pretty good at skateboarding. Got good at photography a year or so ago and since he’s turned it into a real hobby. Rich is also a fairly good actor and singer. He knows a lot about musical theater.

TW: Domestic abuse, homophobic violence, depression

In southern Maryland, near the tip of the Delmarva peninsula, there lies the town of Sundew. It’s a small, fairly unassuming town just off of Maryland Route 13, a collection of mismatched plaster-sided buildings in yellows and beiges separated by stretches of forest and the occasional farm. There’s a gas station with a dingy convenience store, a few greasy fast food joints along the main drag, a brick-sided doctor’s office by the grocery store, an Applebee’s across from that in a strip mall with a pet shop and a quarter laundromat. A white-sided traditional church sits farther down the road, with a small, well-kept garden and a school jutting off of the side in an L-shape. A graveyard huddles off in the distance. To anyone who doesn’t know this place, Sundew appears as a normal, albeit slightly run-down, southern town, and in a lot of ways they’re right. Yet, beneath the surface, there lies a darkness that most don’t come across. Richard found this out oh-so-sadly.

Richard was born in the gargantuan white-sided black-shingled manor that looms across the street from God’s Echoes Evangelical Church. His father, Rev. Daniel Blume, was the pastor, a gargantuan figure well over six feet tall with a chin that looked cut out of diamond and hair that glowed with gel. He spoke with a southern drawl and had a voice that boomed and echoed. He was a pillar of the community, a self-appointed town leader, the kind who everyone knew and who was invited to every event. Daniel hosted a Christian radio show every Sunday after church where he’d tell people about the rewards of keeping to God’s path and the dangers of modern society. It was a dynastic role, pastor of God’s Echoes, passed down from Daniel’s father to him, and hopefully one day down to Richard’s older brother Mark.

Daniel was a terrible father. While he held up a kind and gracious persona out of the house, inside he was a strict, terrifying presence. It wasn’t that he struggled with alcoholism or depression- no, it was something deeper than that. Daniel looked at the world outside of Sundew and saw nothing but sin. The acceptance of what was once held in contempt disgusted him. More than anything else, more than the acceptance of abortion or homosexuality or Islam, Daniel Blume hated metahumans. He saw them as sins against God, as literal trials by Satan descended unto humanity by the powers of Hell. Every sunday, he would tie his sermon message back to them, how they defied God by accepting power beyond what He gave them. When Richard was seven, he came home with a comic book a friend at school had given him. His father beat him with a belt, then forced a lighter into Richard’s hand and made him set the book ablaze.

“You will learn eventually, my son, to avoid sin,” Richard remembers his father saying. “But you must learn first what to hate.”

So Richard learned to hate. He attended church multiple times a week. He listened to his father’s sermons, learned about the evil that lay in the heart of the Metahuman Revolution. When Richard was nine, there was a boy in class named Felipe who came to school on crutches after breaking his foot. Richard carried his books around all day. He liked how Felipe’s hair curled around the nape of his neck and he loved his smile, small flashes of sweetness. The boys would sit together during recess and talk about everything while the other kids played. When word got back to Daniel that Richard had a boyfriend, he beat his son again, told him that it was evil to like boys. Richard came to school the next day and wouldn’t talk to Felipe. Felipe followed him through the halls. A crowd gathered. Richard pushed him to the ground and threw his crutches down the hallway. That’s how Richard came to hate gay people.

Things recovered quickly after that incident. Richard got a new friend group, one that more fit his family’s economic status (Rev. Blume was very wealthy). They were all the kids of rich folk; one’s father owned a country club. Another’s was the head of a successful cardiology practice, another was a contract lawyer who worked for Perdue. The kids were wealthy, white, popular, and utter dickheads. In middle school, they would hide out in basements drinking their parents’ alcohol and talking about what girls they wanted to fuck. They bullied the misfits at school, the gays like Felipe, the children of migrant workers. Once, the leader of the group, a tall kid with a buzzcut and enormous braces named Frank, asked a girl in class for a blowjob. She said no, so they told the whole school to call her a whore. Richard would hang in the back. He couldn’t stop them, but he couldn’t bring himself to join in. Once, Frank shoved Felipe into a locker (it was a small town, everyone went to the same elementary and middle school) and told Richard to call him a faggot. Richard refused. Frank called him a pussy. Richard broke Felipe’s nose. Richard went home that night and lay in bed and felt nothing at all. He thought about Felipe’s beautiful face and how he’d broken it. Then he sat motionless for a long time and thought about his belt in his closet and if it was strong enough to suffocate him. He wondered what God would say if he did.

During late summer, when Richard was thirteen, his friends and him went hiking in the woods outside of Sundew. They followed along a small creek that wove through the woods between the trees and under the highway bridges. Around dusk, they came to a spot in the woods where the trees had fallen into piles of splinters around a crater in the ground. It was cold and dusty— it had been there a long time. Carefully, the boys crept through the hazardous environment, stepping over the remains of the trees and between the enormous splinters, to the crater itself. It was about the width across of a minivan and jagged at the edges. In the center, a rock the size of a softball sat firmly in the ground. Soft light emanated from its depths, casting shadows around the crater’s perimeter. Somehow, Richard felt drawn to it. The light seemed to call out to him specifically, like mystical hands reaching out to grab him. Before he could stop himself, Richard was standing over it, his other friends in tow. He knelt down before the meteorite. Here, he could feel its warm glow reach up to him. He could see two colors in it, one red and one yellow, occasionally mixing into a soft sunset orange. Gently, he touched the meteorite. The glow moved towards his hands like the tendrils of a plasma ball. It floated past him like sparks or fireflies. Soon, he was surrounded in light, enveloped in it. Richard felt something course through him, a power unlike any he’d ever felt. Every muscle twitched, every neuron fired at full force. He felt nothing but warmth and happiness and...and power, oh power like nothing else. The glow began to fade into his skin, and with it went the ecstacy of power. The other boys gathered around. They too tried to touch the meteorite. Some of them got a reaction, but nothing like what hit Richard. They promised never to tell anyone what had happened, and went home before it grew dark.

Things proceeded as normal from that moment on. Richard went to school the next day and his friends gathered around to see if he had any super powers. He disappointed them; nothing had changed, at least nothing significant. He noticed that he got really cold when he sat by the air conditioner in math class. Later that day, he plugged in a fan in his English class and the outlet shocked him. Instead of a small spark, it felt like his entire body lit up in pain. Things stayed like this for months. That November, Richard got his first girlfriend, a cute girl named Riley who lived in a literal mansion on a hill outside of town. She had strawberry blonde hair and large breasts. She rode horses competitively and loved equestrian sport. He guessed she was hot. Felipe changed schools over the summer, and Richard never saw him again. Richard would still think about him sometimes, and when he did he’d go into the chapel and pray for a long time.

Nothing ever felt enough. Richard hated his friends. They made him do things that he couldn’t stomach. He didn’t love his girlfriend, though she tried so hard to make him. Drugs didn’t help; sure, smoking would clear his mind for a bit but then he’d wake up exhausted and angry and smelling like death. Richard couldn’t stand alcohol either; he despised how it burned his nostrils and throat and made him want to vomit. He lived in the jaws of a trap, one that he couldn’t escape.

Richard got out of the trap by luck. Freshman year of high school, a horrendous hurricane hit the Delmarva peninsula and devastated Sundew. Building flooded all across the town, and the parish school Richard had attended for so long was completely destroyed. This came in early August, mere weeks from the start of classes, and none of the children of the town had a place to go to school. As a response to the emergency, the children were enrolled in South Bend High School, a public school a few miles north of Sundew in Pocomoke City. The hundred student class of God’s Echoes Parish School was thrown into a high school with over 1500 students. At first, this scared Richard, being thrown into this brand new environment where he knew almost no one, but he quickly found it incredibly liberating. Here, Richard could avoid Frank and his gang of thugs without disturbing the peace at home. Bullies were fewer with such a large school size (while they still existed certainly, Richard could avoid them).

It wasn’t perfect, though; try as he might, Richard struggled to make new friends. Being around other people make him anxious— he expected them not to like him. Eventually, he did make friends with a girl one year ahead of him named Alex. She was unlike anyone he knew back home; she listened to Green Day and Rage Against the Machine. She wore camo pants and backwards baseball caps and talked about redistributing the wealth. Something about her drew him in, she had a unique charisma that he couldn’t shake. They started to hang out after school (Alex lived right down the street). He’d stay over at her house sometimes on weekends- they became nearly inseparable fairly quickly. The spring of his freshman year, the two both auditioned for the school musical (Richard at Alex’s pressuring). Though at first Richard found it hard to push through his usual shyness, musical theater opened him up to a side of himself he hadn’t experienced before. Something about pretending to be someone else freed his headspace in a unique and powerful way. She made him feel comfortable with himself, though they differed significantly ideologically.

With her influence in his life, Richard started acting differently. He entered a rebellious phase, started dressing more urban and got his ear pierced. On his fifteenth birthday, Richard used the money his aunt gave him to get his hair dyed. People around Sundew started treating Richard differently. The townsfolk were more suspicious of him after this strange transformation. Generally people would be nicer to Richard because of his father’s status, but now they treated him like any other teenager. His old friends in town avoided him, called him a weirdo when they saw him. Not long after he auditioned for the play, Riley broke up with him. His father started acting more hostile than he ever had before. Often, the two would get into arguments over the dinner table over Richard’s embrace of modern society. His mother Laura, while mostly accepting of Richard’s change (“It’s just a phase, hun”) didn’t stand in Rev. Daniel’s way. Richard lived his life reserved from the rest of his family, staying out of the house or hiding in his room to avoid them.



One day, Alex and Richard were talking on their way back from school. It was raining and they were ducking under branches to keep dry. They were talking about the football team (which was hilariously bad). One of the safeties on the team was this tall, muscular guy named Devin Heller—Rich thought he was cute, but he said “good-looking”.

“Oh yeah?” Alex said through laughter.

“I mean, you know, as good-looking as a guy can get.” Rich replied. They kept walking until they reached the crosswalk at the end of the block. Then Rich stopped in his tracks. He stared down at the puddle at his feet, imagining he could see its reflection. His face felt cold and numb. Alex said:

“You okay, b-”

“Alex,” Rich said. “I’m gay.” Alex stopped too.

“Yeah?” she said after a second.

“Yeah,” Rich said, his eyes still downcast. He nodded vigorously, his face still white. “Yeah, I’m gay. Yeah.” The words came out like splinters.

“Okay,” Alex said.

“Is that, like, is that okay? Is that cool? I...haven’t done this before and I don’t know what to do and I’m afraid it’s wrong and that I’m wrong and that, uh-.”

“Yeah, its okay,” Alex said. She put a hand on Rich and smiled. He started crying into her shoulder.

Richard had done it. He rang the bell, and it could not be unrung. Alex was gentle about it; she pushed on the boundaries of his comfort bits at a time. At first, she changed nothing, but then she’d slide in a comment about a boy he’d been staring at and they’d whisper together for some time. Richard wasn’t ready to tell anyone else, and she respected that. Yet now, Richard was more afraid than ever to be around his family. He feared that a text would be intercepted or his parents would overhear them after school. Alex came over for dinner every once in a while and those filled Richard with unbridled horror. Daniel hated Alex, hated everything she stood for. His mother assumed they were dating and didn’t want to tell anyone yet. Daniel became more strict than he ever had before. At dinnertime, Richard’s phone was taken (as was his brother’s who was eighteen and a senior). His computer was child-blocked to academic sites (he knew how to get out of that). His father would come earlier and earlier to pick him up from school.

Then one day, it happened. Richard had gotten back from church (which included a particularly long sermon about the dangers of accepting homosexuals) and his family was sitting down for lunch. Daniel had been in a peculiar mood lately, more nervous and paranoid than usual. He was sitting at the head of the table, reading a newspaper. In it was a story about a kid who went to a different high school in Pocomoke City and had committed suicide after being outed as gay. Daniel was reading the paper aloud. Richard stared hard into his baked beans.

“Serves them right,” Daniel said, folding the newspaper. Richard froze. “That’s what happens when you stray from God’s love. It’s a quick path to depression and death.

“Well that’s a little extreme, dear,” Richard’s mom said.

“No, it isn’t,” Daniel replied with his mouth full. “You cannot live without the light of God in your life. It is like grass living without water, or fire burning without oxygen. They should know that. They go to church and they should listen to the preachers there. They chose to screw each other instead of listening to God’s word and now they will suffer for-”

“You shouldn’t say that,” Richard said. He stood up from the table and the chair hit the drywall hard. Daniel looked up peculiarly.

“Sit down,” Daniel said calmly.

“No, you’re gonna apologize for what you just said,” Richard snapped. Daniel grimaced.

“Do you know who you’re talking to, boy?” Daniel replied.

“Do you realize what you’re saying? You’re condoning suicide. That was a person no matter what you think about their sexual preference.”

“They had chances to stray away from sin and they didn’t! You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink!”

“Maybe if you didn’t spend so much time hating in the name of God they’d come to church!” Richard shook with rage. He felt an energy flowing through him unlike any other.

“Richard Joseph Blume!” Laura said.

“No mom, I’m tired of it! Every sunday you get up on that podium and you tell people who to hate! God doesn’t hate anyone!”

“You think that because you’re friends with that dyke you can say these things about me in my house.”

“What did you call her?!” Richard stepped forward, shoving the table out of his way with inhuman strength. His plate teetered on the table’s edge and fell to the floor, breaking. The room felt hot.

“Enough of this!” Daniel stood up and punched Rich in the left cheek. A sickening smack filled the room. Daniel withdrew his fist. His whole arm ached. It was like he’d punched a brick wall. Quickly Daniel’s hands flew to his belt. He grabbed Richard by the collar and shoved him down to the table. Laura ran to hold him back. Mark watched on in horror.

As Daniel held the belt into the air, Richard felt that power again, coursing through all of his body, just beneath the skin. Something dripped off his nose and hit the table in a little bead. From his odd angle, it looked like gold. He began to sweat, but it wasn’t quite sweat; it felt like it was clinging to his skin and it was oddly heavy. Apparently, everyone else had noticed it too. Daniel stood with one hand in the air and the other spread wide between himself and Richard. Laura stepped back and made the sign of the cross. Suddenly, Richard felt his whole body lurch. He pushed himself up off of the table, but his limbs didn’t move. Dozens of gold wires had exploded out from Richard’s body, grabbing at the table and ceiling and walls and pulling him upright until he floated a few inches off of the ground. All of the gold glowed a cool orange. Richard’s skin was all covered in a thin metallic layer. He held out his hand, and a blob the size of a grapefruit materialized from his skin. Daniel stepped back, shaking his head with sheer horror on his face. Richard launched the grapefruit, and it smashed into the wall next to Daniel’s head, leaving a hole in the drywall.

“Satan has taken hold of you, my son,” Daniel said. Then he ran off towards the church.

There wasn’t much time. Richard was terrified. His family was terrified of him. Quickly, he ran up to his room, pulled out a gym bag, and began to throw things in haphazardly. Occasionally, he’d notice a gold fingerprint on his clothing. He was crying; the tears were also golden. He came back down to the first floor with his things packed. Both Daniel and Laura were nowhere to be seen. Mark was standing in the hallway.

“Mark, I don’t know what’s going on,” Richard said. “I swear I don’t know how I did that or what I’m doing or-”

“Get out of here before dad gets back,” Mark said.

So Richard ran out of the front door of his family house in broad daylight with his skin leaking gold and a bag around his shoulder. He sprinted past everyone he saw, trying to hide his face in his jacket. Some saw still and recoiled. He ran to the forest at the edge of town and hid deep within the brush. Within an hour, sirens echoed down the street. Richard didn’t know what else to do. He called Alex and said he needed help now. She left with her mom’s car and sped off towards Sundew. For forty-five minutes Richard ran through the forests, getting as far as he could away from the rest of the town. In the distance, he could hear shouts through a megaphone and sirens whirring. Alex met him on a road a mile outside of town and they drove back.

“Dude, what the fuck do you have on your face?” Alex asked when he sat down.

“This is my face,” Richard replied. Alex drove the rest of the way in silence as Richard had a panic attack in the passenger’s seat.

They couldn’t go to Alex’s house; Daniel knew Alex’s dad and knew where they lived. So Alex drove them to an abandoned Arby’s on the outskirts of Pocomoke City and parked the car in a shady spot beneath some trees. The musical theater kids had come there one day under the guise of doing some “underground shit” and instead spent the time complaining about classes and smoking. Once Alex had parked, Richard explained everything: the argument, his dad’s punch, the orange glow and the meteor and the gold all over his skin.

“No way dude,” Alex said at some point. “You’re a...you’re a meta! That’s awesome!”

“Are you fucking joking? This is not awesome!” Richard replied.

“You have superpowers! That’s fucking rad man!”

They got dinner at a local Taco Bell and hid out overnight in the dirty and infested Arby’s. Richard was beside himself— he couldn’t help but panic. His father had only told him terrible things about metahumans; Richard had been indoctrinated into hating them. He felt a deep sort of sickness in the pit of his stomach. Self-loathing that was familiar to him, but this was something deeper, something more sinister.

The kids didn’t fool anyone. Both of them left their phones on during their hideout and police were quick to track them down through GPS. By the next afternoon, Rich found himself sitting in the Pocomoke City police department in an office surrounded by frosted glass windows. A very stern-looking police officer was snapping at him across the table about appreciating those who raise you. Through the glass, Richard could see the silhouette of his father, tall and imposing, standing by the door. He assumed that any minute he would be sent home and endure hellish punishment. Just as the police officer was ending his speech, however, Richard heard a gasp from outside. Off in the distance, he could hear a low, rumbling voice echo through the police office, like if a mountain could talk. Enormous footfalls followed it, and soon a truly terrifying figure appeared in the silhouette, standing several feet over Daniel Blume.

“Reverend Blume, I presume?” the creature said in its mountainous voice.

“My lord...uh, yes, this is him,” Daniel replied. His voice shook.

“May I speak with you a moment?” The two lumbered off. The police officer looked at the glass with utter confusion, then back towards Richard, then towards the door.

“What on Earth…” the officer mumbled.

A few minutes later, the figure reappeared and there was a polite knock at the door. Hesitantly, the police officer opened the door a crack and gasped.

“...may I come in, officer?” the monstrous voice said once more. Something was pulled out of a pocket. The officer stood in stunned silence, then nodded and opened the door wide. Standing there was an enormous lizard in a black suit. He had deep green scales like a crocodile, a short snout, and a tail that dragged the floor behind him. As he stepped into the room, his head nearly scraped the ceiling.

“The furniture in here is a little small,” the lizard-man said, confused. “I’ll just stand I suppose.” He looked over at Richard, whose face had gone white.

“Who...who are you?” Richard asked.

“My name is Henry Olin. I am an agent for the Federal Agency of Metahuman Affairs, or FAMA. It’s nice to meet you.” The lizard-man extended an enormous clawed hand, and Richard shook it hesitantly. “Now, I’m sure you have a lot of questions.”

They talked for a long time. Henry explained metahumans to Richard and how FAMA worked. Richard told him about the meteor in the forest and the orange glow. He told Richard about the academy programs, a system of schools designed to train metahumans to better use their powers. One in particular could be found in South Carolina, the famous Academy 003.

“I am aware that you come from a background which is rather...non-conducive to having metahuman abilities,” Henry said. “Academy 003 is a very good school, both academically and supernaturally. There, you will have a safe place to practice and refine your abilities, away from those who could hurt you. The application process can be difficult, but considering your situation, you will have an advantage to getting in. What do you say?”

Richard stared at the floor for a long time.

“...I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” he said.

The next few months passed in awkward tension. Richard stayed at Alex’s house, avoiding his family completely. Henry would visit a few times a week to check up on him and have him fill out paperwork. Some FAMA agents began to help him figure out how to use his power, though progress was slow and he's still quite a novice at it. He was able to get into Academy 003 without much trouble, as his grades were fairly good and his background necessitated protection. By the end of the summer, he left for South Carolina. He came to his family house with a car full of FAMA agents. He and Henry went in and collected his things. Daniel stood at the back of the kitchen, looking at the floor. Richard’s mother begged him to stay. Mark was nowhere to be seen.

Now Richard is here, in a new place full of strange people he’s never met. He’s nervous about being at this new place, and he’s still getting used to accepting meta-humanity both from others and from himself.

Type-Chromatic (Yellow-Red)

Gold Rush: Beneath Richard’s skin lies a layer of molten gold. This layer is supernaturally-compact, defying the laws of physics by doing so (ie there’s more metal in there than would appear and it doesn’t impact his weight as much as it should). Despite being a liquid, the gold is naturally at room temperature, preventing it from burning Richard or anyone else. At a base level, this gives Richard some superhuman durability, as the layer of metal acts as a suit of armor. Anything which attempts to penetrate beneath Richard’s skin is stopped by the metal, causing minor bleeding but no severe internal damage beyond that. This has a limit, of course, as gold isn’t very strong as far as metals go and a strong enough projectile or thrusting instrument will still push through it.

What really gets interesting is what Richard can do with this gold. By channeling it out of his pores, Richard can produce gold constructs which he can freely manipulate. In total, Richard can produce an amount of gold equal to his total surface area and one-inch thick. There’s a lot Richard can do with this, from increasing his own mobility to producing complex shapes. The gold is of superhuman strength, capable of lifting things much heavier than Richard could on his own, though its strength is relative to the amount of it being used (ie, a single wire will be very weak, while a large clump will be incredibly strong).

The name “Gold Rush” comes from Richard’s favorite way to use this ability. By creating a mat of gold beneath his feet, Richard can create a layer of semi-liquid gold which is slippery, allowing Richard to slide very quickly along the ground. He’s gotten quite good at this, and can move at about 20 mph when at max speed, using gold wires to maneuver himself by pulling on surrounding objects. This works much better in urban environments than rural ones, as without things to pull on he can’t maneuver very much.

The other primary way the power manifests is as wires, which Richard can weave together and individually manipulate. Richard can do a ton of things with this, from restricting opponents to swinging through urban environments Spider-Man-style. Enough of these wires can overwhelm even a strong opponent, tangling them up or throwing them around.

Richard can only produce a limited amount of gold at a time, equivalent roughly to his body’s surface area with a one-inch thickness. While his powers afford him a good deal of range, they will run out if pushed to their limits. Most of his mobility options are lost in flat environments where there isn’t anything for him to grab onto, and his gold mat becomes harder to control on wet or grassy surfaces. Additionally, Richard’s gold constructs must always stay attached to him by a thread no matter what. Any amount of it that is cut off from him loses its shape and becomes a puddle of gold (it also quickly solidifies). Richard can regenerate gold, but it takes an extremely long time (I’m talking months to years) so for all intents and purposes he loses any gold that is cut off of him.

Gold isn’t something that you want to have under your skin. Gold is extremely conductive, and because of this Richard has to deal with a host of weaknesses due to having it permanently inside of his body. He suffers the effects of heat and cold much more severely than other people, as the gold will quickly become the same temperature as his environment without insulation. Even mild weather can quickly make Richard hypothermic if he’s not careful, and summer heat can give him severe burns if he doesn’t shield himself from the sun or otherwise keep the gold off his body. Another of Richard’s vulnerabilities is electricity. Gold conducts electricity like it’s nobody’s business, making any shock Richard receives exponentially worse. His metal must always stay attached to his body, so shocking any part of it will eventually travel back to him. An electricity manipulator would hard-counter Richard in almost every situation.